A company in California promised to make people rich, but most of them never made any money at all. Now it's been ordered to pay back over $25 million. The company and its president are no longer allowed to offer any business or work-at-home opportunities.
The Zaken Corp., in Thousand Oaks, California, told people they could make $3,000 to $6,000 a week working only two to four hours. The work was finding products companies wanted to get rid of. Zaken was supposed to find buyers for the products and give the finders half the money.
But, as the judge in the case said today, “[F]ewer than one percent of consumers ever earned any income at all.”
To start, they had to pay $148 for a book on how to find these products. Zaken also tried to get them to buy more "tools". For example, some paid $2300 for another book that was full of "“largely outdated telephone numbers of companies who were out of business.”
Zaken Corp and the president, Tiran Zaken, ended up in U.S. District Court. Judge Dean D. Pregerson heard the case and made the order.
(Source: U.S. Department of Justice)
