A Las Vegas businessman claims he’s been defrauded by a man in Utah who is already the subject of a Federal Trade Commission complaint alleging that he’s scammed consumers out of $275 million.
The Las Vegas businessman is in his newly filed litigation asking the court to award $20 million in damages against the Utah businessman and his companies and partners.
One of the co-defendants in the case is a St. George, Utah bank. All of the defendants in the case are in the Southwest Utah area.
The FTC filed a lawsuit in Las Vegas in late December against the Utah man, claiming he and corporations he’s a part of have been scamming consumers on the Internet by luring them into worthless services by offering trial memberships. Consumer credit cards were then purportedly charged repeatedly for the valueless services.
The Las Vegas businessman is also CEO of a Florida company involved in online payment processing. He claims he and the Utah man met a trade show and agreed to a 50-50 partnership in that industry, servicing online merchants with Internet customers paying bills with checks or debit cards instead of credit cards.
In the suit, the Las Vegas man claims the arrangement generated $2.9 million a month from March of last year to November of last year, but that the Utah man and his partners defrauded him by diverting his half of the profits to their other business ventures.
The Utah businessman is also accused of turning some of the Las Vegas businessman’s assets into liquid assets: gold and cash.
The Utah man and his partners deny the charges in the Las Vegas man’s lawsuit as well as in the FTC’s suit.
Resource: Las Vegas Sun: “Las Vegas man says he was defrauded in businessman’s alleged scheme”: January 13, 2011
