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Lanon Wee

FTC Accuses Amazon AI Scammers of Spending Millions on Lake Como Wedding and Cars

The FTC declared on Tuesday that it is currently taking action against John and Roman Cresto for supposedly deceiving customers out of a considerable amount of money in what appears to be an "continuing" scheme. As per the allegation, the siblings supposedly proffered e-commerce coaching and management services to customers, but the FTC claims they did not fulfill the guarantees and left customers in a financial quandary. The Crestos advertised pictures of a luxurious lifestyle on social media, counting trips to Switzerland and Italy. John and Roman Cresto allegedly made millions of dollars by claiming they could teach regular consumers and investors how to sell on Amazon and Walmart, and trading on a fraudulent image of success. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now taking action to crack down on people and agencies offering deceptive e-commerce advice to consumers and small businesses. A surge in online retail has resulted in the emergence of "coaches" or "gurus" who offer their expertise, sometimes for a high fee, without any guarantee of success.The FTC recently asked a judge to temporarily bar the Cresto brothers from doing businesses in connection with a lawsuit filed. According to the complaint, they promised to expertly manage the operations of automated online stores through their companies, such as Empire Ecommerce, and demanded payment of up to $125,000 for the initial investment and a further $80,000 for working capital. In addition, they also took 35% of profits from their "partners'". However, by October 2022, the majority of stores managed by Empire had either been suspended or terminated on both Amazon and Walmart for violating policies.Empire also recruited affiliate marketers to post videos online claiming their services lead to significant passive income. This scheme yielded over $1.5 million in commission fees, though in truth, most of Empire's clients lost money. The FTC further alleges that the brothers spent the money they conned from their clients on luxury goods, such as high-end cars, vacations and a wedding in Italy. Moreover, they have since started up a new business, Automators AI, which claims to teach people how to make 'over $10,000 per month in sales' and use a popular AI chatbot. The agency contends that this scheme is ongoing and has cost consumers tens of thousands of dollars. as FTC begins legal proceedings against Empire The clock was ticking on Empire's alleged fraudulent activities as the Cresto brothers tried to offload their businesses to Daniel Cohen. Now Cohen is suing them, alleging that they deceived him about the state of the business and used him to deflect the blame from themselves. In October 2022, the same month the FTC accused most of the Empire's active Amazon stores of suspension, Roman Cresto contacted Cohen, a Florida based businessman, via Instagram to discuss the sale of their empire. During a subsequent Zoom meeting, John Cresto reassured Cohen of Empire's state other than "a couple" of disgruntled clients. Cohen went on to mention to CNBC that the Crestos gave projections that the Empire was making up to 50% of profit from what they claimed to be thousands of stores. Cohen expressed suspicion on these estimates and decided to buy the empire for $100,000 on November 7, 2022. Two days later, the Crestos revealed that there were five ongoing legal disputes handled by their defense firm, Stubbs Alderton & Markiles. Emails from many of their clients mentioned in Cohen's lawsuit evidenced that they had been cheated as their stores did not perform as promised. One of the emails alleged that the Crestos had scammed nearly $525K for several LLC set-ups, credit card feeding, virtual store fees, etc. Emails from many other clients suggested negligence or "shady" dealings by the Cresto brothers. Cohen further stated to CNBC that Stubbs Alderton & Markiles agreed to represent him, but later fired him as a client and agreed to serve the Cresto brothers instead. Nima Tahmassebi, Cohen's present attorney told CNBC that this was immoral. Stubbs Alderton & Markiles did not respond to CNBC's inquiries about the cases, and the Cresto brothers did not comment on the request either.

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