The US Federal Trade Commission announced some good news for victims of fake anti-virus purveyor Innovative Marketing.
Initial legal actions against Innovative Marketing began approximately three years ago when the FTC ordered them to halt operations related to their activity selling fake security products.
The FTC reached a settlement with two of the defendants, Mark and Maurice D’Souza, in January 2011 for a payment of $8,272,962 and other conditions to monitor their future activities.
So this $8 million goes towards the budget crisis, right? Nope! In a shocking move the FTC will be sending out rebate checks to the 320,000 known victims.
Victims will receive varying amounts depending on how much they were scammed out of. The average should be around $20, far less than was stolen, but still a positive result.
If you are one of the people to receive a check as part of the settlement, don’t waste too much time before taking it to the bank. The FTC says the checks will expire in just 60 days.
Unfortunately the millions of other victims who happened to have had their money stolen by a different criminal group are not so lucky. As with most crimes their money is no where to be found.
Let’s hope that this is the start of a trend and not a blip on the radar.
Millions of consumers are being bilked of their hard earned cash through fake anti-virus, banking Trojans, premium-rate SMS scams and plain old Canadian pill pushers while all the attention goes to shadowy RATs and Stuxnet.
First the AT&T/T-Mobile USA merger, then Facebook’s shameful privacy promises and now rogue security vendors! Great showing FTC, keep up the good work.
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