As if they didn’t have enough problems fighting off accusations of filming minors, the makers of popular video and Internet series Girls Gone Wild have been hit with a deceptive practices complaint by the Federal Trade Commission.
The Justice Department filed the complaint on behalf of the FTC in federal court Dec. 16, accusing Mantra Films and owner-director Joseph R. Francis with marketing the videos and DVDs of the series deceptively since December 2000, automatically shipping unordered product to consumers and charging those consumers without their consent.
Mantra Films spokesmen at Sitrick and Company were unavailable for comment as this story went to press.
The FTC accuses Mantra of enrolling consumers who responded to Internet and television ads for single videos or DVDs into what they called “continuity” programs, shipping additional unordered videos and DVDs on the “negative option” basis, and charging the consumers’ credit or debit cards for each shipment until the consumers who didn’t want them took action to stop them.
Mantra’s advertising, the FTC charged, failed to advise how the continuity programs operated, failed to get the consumers’ permission to enroll, and failed to provide effective ways to cancel the memberships once they were enrolled.
“In a case of deceptive marketing gone wild,” said FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director Howard Beales, announcing the filing, “consumers were enrolled in a program of monthly deliveries without their knowledge. That’s out of bounds. If you sign consumers up for an ongoing plan without their permission, we’ll do our best to unwind the transaction.”
Francis and Mantra face civil penalties of up to $11,000 per violation if the FTC complaint is upheld in court. They’re charged with violating the FTC Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and the Unordered Merchandise Statute, as well as defying prior FTC rulings that shipping unordered merchandise and seeking payment for such merchandise “without the expressed consent of the recipient” equals unfair and deceptive act and practice.
The FTC is seeking a restraining order barring Francis and Mantra from violating those laws.
Francis was arrested earlier this year in Florida on drug trafficking charges, a complaint since dismissed. But he and Mantra were also charged in Florida in a case involving accusations that they filmed minors for Girls Gone Wild. Francis’s attorneys told a court hearing in September that materials confiscated during a raid at Francis’s home would prove he and Mantra innocent and disprove government allegations that they run any criminal enterprise.
