Negative option marketer Scott Roix was charged and plead guilty to orchestrating a negative option fraud scheme that utilized multiple merchant accounts to scam consumers out of millions of dollars. The USA Herald has reported on other negative option marketers that have had ties to allege scams that utilized similar merchant processing schemes to the bank fraud system that Scott Roix used.
HEALTHRIGHT's willingness to cancel payments and provide refunds as part of HEALTH RIGHT's telemarketing operations, Mr. Roix and his co-conspirators knowingly and willfully devised call scripts that were designed to deceive consumers, in that the call scripts contained claims that were materially false, misleading, and omitted material information that induced consumers to allow credit card charges to HEALTHRIGHT, for the financial benefit of HEAL THRIGHT, Mr. Roix, and his coconspirators.
consumers about a variety of consumer products they sold.
and promising excellent customer service.
enrolled consumers in a 14- or 30-day "trial" that was promised to be "risk-free." For consumers to receive their initial shipment of products, HEALTHRIGHT telemarketers told consumers that they needed to provide their credit card information to cover what HEAL THRIGHT' s telemarketers described as only minor "shipping costs" for the initial shipment. Despite this assurance of a "risk-free" trial, HEALTHRIGHT enrolled consumers who accepted an initial shipment of products into a monthly subscription for the product that billed the consumers' credit cards on a monthly basis. HEALTHRIGHT's telemarketers deceptively assured consumers that if, for any reason, they wanted to avoid that monthly charge, they simply needed to call HEALTHRIGHT's customer service department, and upon speaking with representatives in that department, they could easily cancel their subscription and receive a full refund for any products returned unopened.
In fact, HEALTHRIGHT's representations about its customer service were false.
calling or emailing to cancel recurring monthly charges or demand refunds were not called back, put on hold, or otherwise stalled, and, on the occasions that consumers did speak to someone at HEALTHRIGHT, they were run through a gauntlet of scripted rebuttals that used many similar deceptive or unfounded claims that HEALTHRIGHT used to market the products in the first place, for the sole purpose of delaying the consumers' cancellation as long as possible.
"Hi. This is ____ calling on behalf of Pure Garcinia Cambogia," never providing HEALTHRIGHT's name specifically.
credit cards of thousands of consumers each month, credit card chargebacks often exceeded numerical caps set by financial institutions. In order to conceal or otherwise minimize the risk of chargebacks to HEALTHRIGHT's consumer products telemarketing business, Mr. Roix and his co-conspirators established a series of corporate entities, each of which was assigned a separate credit card merchant identification number ("MID") through which HEALTHRIGHT passed payments and chargebacks. In cases where chargebacks exceeded or risked exceeding a relevant numerical cap, Mr. Roix and his co-conspirators moved payment settlements from one MID to another. This diffused the risk that chargebacks in a given time period would reach or exceed a number that might result in financial institutions halting settlements, prolonging HEALTHRIGHT's ability to work with financial institutions. This, in turn, enabled its misrepresentations and charges to consumer credit cards to continue.
Jeff Watterson is an Administrator and Staff Writer for the USA Herald. His primary focuses are politics, investigative journalism, and technology news.
When Jeff is not writing, which is his hobby, he enjoys fishing and hunting.