The Federal Trade Commission is mailing more than 110,000 refund checks to consumers defrauded by an online operation that tricked payday loan applicants into paying for an unrelated debit card.
The FTC alleged that payday loan marketers Matthew Patterson, Mark Benning, Jason Strober and Swish Marketing, Inc., worked with debit card marketers Jerry Klein, Joshua Finer and VirtualWorks LLC, to design the deceptive payday loan application form that triggered a charge of up to $54.95 for a prepaid debit card with a zero balance.
Approximately $1.9 million is going back to consumers. The average payment will be between $10 and $15.
Consumers who receive the checks from the FTC’s redress administrator should cash them within 60 days of the date they were issued. The FTC never requires consumers to pay money or provide information before redress checks can be cashed.
