Complaint Review: Alyon Technologies - Elizabeth NJ Nationwide

Alyon is now being sued by the Federal government, lawsuit filed May 13, 2003
FTC Press Release:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/05/swnetforce.htm

Law Enforcement Posse Tackles Internet (censored), Deceptive Spammers

Initiative Launched to Prevent Spammers From Concealing Identity and Evading Detection

In the latest in a series of law enforcement initiatives targeting Internet (censored), the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Postal Inspection Service, three United States Attorneys, four state attorneys general, and two state regulatory agencies today announced they have filed 45 criminal and civil law enforcement actions against Internet (censored) and deceptive spammers. In addition to the law enforcement actions, the FTC and 21 U.S. and international agencies have launched an initiative to get organizations in 59 countries to close the open relays that allow spammers to avoid detection by spam filters and law enforcers.

"Today's Internet is not a lawless environment," said Howard Beales, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "In fact, the NetForce partnership demonstrates the importance of enforcement on the Internet beat. We have the biggest impact on deceptive spammers and online (censored) when law enforcement agencies band together to root out and prosecute (censored)."
According to the FTC, the law enforcement actions announced today represent a wide array of deceptive schemes and illegal (censored)including auction (censored), the illegal sale of controlled substances, bogus business opportunities, deceptive money-making (censored), illegal advance-fee credit card offers, and identity theft.
The FTC filed eight district court lawsuits, naming 20 defendants, to halt deceptive Web operations:

(THis is describing the Alyon lawsuit)
"In a case that generated more than 1,200 consumer complaints to the FTC's Consumer Sentinel database, the FTC asked a district court to halt the defendants' unauthorized billing and collection for videotext services purportedly accessed on the Internet."

http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/05/alyontechcmp.pdf (Link to copy of the complaint) all 22 pages !
"According to the FTC, the defendants use a modem dialing program to disconnect consumers from their own Internet service providers and reconnect them to the (censored)' network without the consumers' authorization or approval. Using the dialing program, the defendants then capture the telephone number used by the modem, and match it against several databases of line subscriber information, which frequently contain errors. The line subscribers identified as responsible for the captured telephone number later receive bills charging them $4.99 a minute for each minute the defendants claim videotext services were purchased, regardless of whether the line subscribers authorized the purchase.

The FTC alleges that many consumers never visited the defendants' sites at all, and were charged due to billing service errors of which the defendants were aware. Furthermore, according to the FTC, the defendants' dialing program downloads onto consumers' computers without their authorization. The FTC coordinated the investigation of this case with the offices of numerous state attorneys general, and with the invaluable assistance of the New Jersey Attorney General; the Georgia Attorney General; the Georgia Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs; the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection; the Illinois Attorney General; and the Idaho Attorney General."

Way to go everyone, Ripoff reports made this companies tactics TRANSPARENT, and they couldn't hide from the PUBLIC outrage any longer.