Fraudulent online listing service pays out $1.7M to FTC for charging businesses for unwanted services

A service that purported to be an online business directory listing agent will have to pay out $1.7 million to the Federal Trade Commission for charging small businesses for listings they didn’t ask for.

Defendants Francois Egberongbe and Robert N. Durham, Sr., the two men behind the scheme, will also be banned from telemarketing going forward.

Under the guise of several different company names including National Business Advertising, Nationwide Marketing Bureau Inc., National Biz Ads, and Yellow Business Ads, Egberongbe and Durham used a myriad of tactics to sell small businesses and nonprofit organizations listing services that were in some cases never delivered. In addition to phone sales calls, the two men also sent fake bills imprinted with the Yellow Pages walking fingers logo to make the services and charges seem legitimate.

Egberongbe and Durham also impersonated the TransUnion Credit Bureau and other debt collection agencies to get consumers to pay off bogus past-due accounts ranging in cost from $200 to $1500.

This is the second such case that the FTC has settled this year. In July, the FTC charged an Oklahoma City-based group of scammers with a similar con, which defrauded several small businesses, doctors’ offices, retirement homes, and religious schools by making them pay for unwanted online Yellow Pages-like listings.