Court Stops Precious Metals Telemarketer

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal judge has stopped the allegedly illegal practices of a defendant who helped operate a telemarketing scheme that is believed to have received more than $37 million by conning consumers into buying precious metals on credit without clearly disclosing significant costs and risks.

In May 2011, the FTC charged American Precious Metals LLC, Harry R. Tanner, Jr., and Andrea Tanner with violating the FTC Act and the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule while selling precious metal investments.

The court subsequently halted their allegedly deceptive practices, froze their assets, and appointed a receiver to oversee the business, pending a trial. In November 2011, the FTC added Sam J. Goldman as a defendant.

The court order prohibits Goldman from misrepresenting that consumers are likely to earn high or substantial profits in a short time period on the precious metals sold by the defendants, or that the precious metals are low or minimal risk.

The order also bars him from failing to clearly disclose to consumers, before they pay, material information such as the total fees, commissions, interest charges, and leverage balances that consumers are required to pay, or that consumers are likely to receive equity calls that will require them to pay more money or liquidate their precious metals. In addition, the order prohibits Goldman from violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and from selling or otherwise benefitting from customers' personal information.