No hay mal, que por bien no venga,” as we say in Spanish. There’s nothing bad through which good doesn’t come.
It’s an appropriate phrase to describe the FTC’s settlement withCentro Natural – a telemarketing company that the FTC says deceived and harassed Spanish-speaking people into paying debts they didn’t owe. Thanks to the settlement, announced recently, the company is now banned from telemarketing and debt collecting. It’s an important case, because fraud really does affect every community. The case also aligns with the FTC’s work on how debt collection and credit reporting issues affect Latino consumers.
Among Centro Natural’s list of lures, lies and abuses, detailed in the FTC’s complaint:
- Using Spanish-speaking telemarketers to call Latino consumers.
- Pretending to be government officials, court officials, and lawyers on telemarketing calls to collect fake debts.
- Threatening people with arrest, legal proceedings, and immigration investigations, unless they paid the fake debt, and using profane language.
- Claiming that the people they called owed thousands of dollars for products. Then offering to settle debts if people paid $350 – $500 and accepted a box of unwanted products.