The FTC is alleging that Instant Response Systems of Brooklyn New York used deception, threats, and intimidation to bully elderly consumers to pay for medical alert systems they neither ordered.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, IRS’s telemarketers called elderly consumers using high pressure tactics in an attempt to get them to buy medical alert services and if they did not purchase the service, IRS would often times falsely claim the consumer had purchased it even if they had not. The sales calls were followed by repeated threats of legal action in order to induce and coerce payment from the consumer. In addition, the FTC contends that Instant Response Systems has illegally made numerous unsolicited calls to consumers whose phone numbers are listed on the National Do Not Call Registry.
According to the FTC’s complaint, consumers who tried to contact the company to dispute the false charges would be berated with threats, verbal abuse, and demands that they pay for the product.
Based on this alleged conduct, the FTC charged the company and its principles with making illegal misrepresentations to consumers, violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule by calling phone numbers on the DNC Registry, and violating the Unordered Merchandise Statute by sending consumers pendants they did not order.
The defendants charged in the case are Instant Response Systems, LLC, also doing business as Response Systems, B.B. Mercantile, Ltd., Medical Alert Industrial, and Medical Alert Services; and Jason Abraham, also known as Yaakov Abraham, individually and as an officer of Instant Response Systems.
