FTC Tags Company for Assisting in Violating Do Not Call Registry

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has obtained its first penalty against a company assisting and facilitating in violating the Do Not Call law. Under a settlement, Entrepreneurial Strategies, Ltd. a Georgia company, and its chief executive Dale Allison Jr. are to pay the FTC $13,454.71 in civil penalties for violating the “assisting and facilitating” provision of the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, commonly referred to as the Do Not Call Registry.

When an individual registers on the do not call registry, telemarketers are not to call the telephone number. Non-profit organizations are exempt from the rule. The FTC alleged that Entrepreneurial and Allison which provide business consulting service to for-profit and non-profit corporations did consulting fro Dale Buird Jr. and certain companies controlled by him.

Buird through a program called Debt Specialists of America, Inc., engaged in telemarketing. Part of the telemarketing included leaving prerecorded messages on consumers’ answering machines. Entrepreneurial and Allision drafted articles of incorporation for Buird to create Debt Management Foundation Services (DMFS) as a nonprofit and filed the papers in Florida. The Internal Revenue Service never recognized DMFS as a non-profit organization. DMFS in fact was set up to evade the do not call registry prohibitions for telemarketing, the FTC alleged.  The FTC alleged that Entrepreneurial and Allison knew or “consciously avoided knowing” that DMFS activities were for the purpose of evading the Do Not Call rules. Their actions assisted and facilitated a violation of the FTC’s rules, the agency charged.

United States of America v. Entrepreneurial Strategies, Ltd., and Dale Allison Jr., and Dale Allison Jr., N.D.GA., No. 06 CV-15 (WCO).