New Jersey Firm Accused of Telephone Listing Fraud
A New Jersey firm has been charged with using fictitious directory listings to dupe Florida consumers.
Florist in Miami Inc. and owner Thomas Meola, of Randolph, NJ, were hit last week with a civil lawsuit, alleging more than 150 violations of Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
They face penalties of $10,000 apiece for each violation.
According to the complaint filed by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, Meola and his firm placed telephone listings for fictitious companies in telephone directories, directory assistance listings, advertisements and on the Internet.
The names usually included the name of a geographic location in the state — for example, Florida’s Florist in Orlando TTP — along with a telephone number corresponding to the local area code, the papers state.
But calls placed to these numbers were “forwarded by the use of remote call forwarding or other technology to another telephone number, usually an 800 number, programmed to ring at the defendants’ business location in New Jersey,” the complaint continues.
The suit alleges that the defendants charged consumers’ credit cards and forwarded the orders to local florists for delivery, the papers, never revealing their true physical location, the lawsuit papers state.
McCollum’s office also charged that some companies were billed for orders that were never delivered.
Customers who had such problems could not “easily go” to the actual place of business for redress.
The complaint continues: “Worse, some of these customers mistakenly identify local florists as defendants and then complain about their orders, when these other truly local florists (whose names may be similar to those names employed by defendants had nothing whatsoever to do with the order, and whose commercial reputation then suffers as a result.”
The fictitious company names included Florida’s Florist in Orlando, Florida’s Florist in Coral Springs and Florida’s Florist in Daytona Beach, the complaint states.
The suit is on file with the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial Circuit for Orange County, FL.
