Richard L. Prochnow, owner of Direct Sales International, has been ordered to pay a $5.4 million civil penalty, in connection with selling magazine subscriptions by telephone, by a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division.
Prochnow of Atlanta was found personally liable and in violation of a Federal Trade Commission consent order and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule for failure to tell consumers their credit cards would be billed for membership in a buying club and other violations.
The court banned for five years Prochnow from owning, controlling, managing advising or assisting others engaged in telemarketing, with limited exceptions.
The ban does not apply to Amerinet, a firm owned by Prochnow that processes payments to telemarketers and Hotdogger, an infomercial company, provided he does not exercise any control of the companies and places his interest in them in the custody of a third party approved by the court.
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