| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
Executives behind at-home business scheme ordered to pay $50,000
Thursday April 24, 2003MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) Two executives of a company that sold a startup kit for an at-home medical billing business have agreed to pay $50,000 toward reimbursing thousands of customers who authorities say were bilked out of about $2 million.
Electronic Medical Billing Inc. executives John C. Moore and David L. Miller are also permanently barred from selling any other at-home business opportunities as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
Neither of the executives admitted any wrongdoing, FTC attorney Kathryn C. Decker said Wednesday.
The FTC contends the Nevada-based company and its subsidiary, Esoft Caducei Inc., sold customers a bogus business plan for starting a home-based medical billing business. The court judgment against EMB and the two executives was issued Tuesday.
``These promoters made promises about earnings and marketability that sounded too good to be true and they were,'' said Howard Beales, director of the agency's Bureau of Consumer Protection. ``The reality is that few consumers who pay for medical billing opportunities find clients or make any money, let alone earn the promised substantial income.''
Beginning in 1999 and until the company was shut down in 2000, customers who responded to either a classified or Internet ad paid $325 for the program on the promise that they would make between $25,000 and $50,000 a year, according to an FTC complaint.
The business kit was supposed to include everything the customers would need to perform medical billing from home, including software needed to submit the claims and a list of doctors willing to pay to use the home workers' service to do their billing. But customers complained that the doctors on the lists either were impossible to reach or did not need help with medical billing, the FTC said.
Only about 2 percent of those who bought the program ever made any money with the business, and none ever made anywhere near the promised income, according to Decker.
The exact number of people who lost money is not known, but is estimated to be in the thousands, Decker said.
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