The Federal Trade Commission just announced that it reached a $1.7 million settlement with WealthPress, resolving allegations that the company deceived consumers with "outlandish and false claims" about its investment advisory services.
If you're making earnings claims in your advertising, you'd better make sure, of course, that sure those claims are truthful and substantiated. This isn't the first time that the FTC has gone after false and misleading earnings claims and it's an area that's going to stay a top priority at the Commission. As Samuel Levine, the FTC's Director of Consumer Protection, said, "We’ve brought several cases this year against companies making false earnings claims, and we won’t hesitate to bring more."
Even if you're not making earnings claims in your advertising, there are some important aspects of this enforcement action that all advertisers should pay attention to.
Notice of Penalty Offenses
In late 2021, the FTC said that it was reviving its little-known and little-used "Notice of Penalty Offenses" authority to put advertisers on notice of certain unlawful practices and that it planned to seek civil penalties from companies that continued to violate the law after getting the notices. Since that time, the FTC has issued Notices of Penalty Offenses on a wide variety of topics, including money-making opportunities, reviews and endorsements, and bait & switch advertising.
Significantly, in its complaint against WealthPress, the FTC alleged that...
On 30 April 2026, DOJ announced a new anti-fraud initiative: the Fraud Oversight through Careful Use of Statistics (FOCUS) initiative. The FOCUS initiative is intended to strengthen DOJ’s working ...