Federal Trade Commission v. Tatto, Inc., et al. (Tatto Receivership)

Federal Trade Commission v. Tatto, Inc., et al., 13-CV-08912-DSF (FFMx), U.S. District Court, Central District of California

Defendants in this case operated a “premium SMS” business providing various text subscription programs to consumers.  The FTC alleged that the core business was “cramming” charges for these programs to consumers who did not knowingly authorize the charges or order the service.  The business was not actively operating at the time of our appointment, but we were able to accumulate substantial assets traceable to the businesses which will ultimately be disbursed to the FTC for consumer redress purposes.  The underlying case was resolved through settlements with consent judgments.  One of those judgments expanded our duties to be the “Liquidator Receiver” to liquidate substantial real estate and personal property assets of the individual Defendants – to date, we have liquidated $5.1 million in real property assets and $770,000 in personal property.  As Receiver, we have also recovered $366,000 in personal property dispositions and $2.3 in liquid assets which were frozen and later repatriated from an account in Hong Kong.