Refunds Sent to O.C. Phone Scam Victims
About 6,400 consumers bilked in telemarketing schemes soon will start getting refund checks totaling more than $1.7 million as part of settlements reached in a Federal Trade Commission investigation into allegedly deceptive sales of precious metals and foreign currencies from Orange County boiler rooms.
The refund checks are in the mail, said Dan Spiro, an FTC senior attorney, and victims nationwide should be receiving them within days. The largest check will be for about $18,600. Spiro would not disclose the names of the victims.
The settlement money comes from several sources, including the liquidated assets of Unimet Credit Corp. and Unimet Trading Corp., the FTC said.
The Newport Beach companies and their four partners were put out of business in 1993.
The agency sued the Unimet companies and the operators in 1992, Spiro said, accusing them of financing telemarketing operations that sold precious metals and foreign currencies illegally. The Unimet companies as well as the telemarketers did not properly disclose the risks or the costs involved with the investments, he said.
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