Judge Orders Firm to Pay $39 Million
Bloomberg News and Reuters
Diversified Marketing Service Corp., an Oklahoma telemarketing company, and its subsidiaries were ordered to pay $39 million for misleading consumers about the costs of magazine subscriptions.
A U.S. district judge in Oklahoma City said Diversified and President H.G. Kuykendall Jr. violated terms of a 1996 Federal Trade Commission settlement barring the company from using deceptive selling practices.
The penalty is the largest assessed since new telemarketing guidelines were put in place six years ago, the Federal Trade Commission said.
An attorney for the defendants did not return a call for comment.
Consumers who think they have been billed improperly by the companies can call a special FTC hotline at (202) 326-2853.
