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The Federal Trade Commission is mailing 18,301 refund checks totaling more than $437,000 to people who bought bogus weight-loss products from Colby Fox, Christopher Reinhold and their companies, Tachht, Inc. and Teqqi, LLC. According to the FTC, the defendants bombarded people with illegal spam email and used false celebrity endorsements and false weight-loss claims to pitch their products. The average check amount is $23.91.

In June 2016, the FTC charged the defendants with paying to send emails from hacked accounts to consumers, making it appear that the messages came from their family members, friends, or other contacts. The messages promoted the defendants’ unproven weight-loss products Original Pure Forskolin and Original White Kidney Bean.

Two court orders settling the FTC’s charges, entered in March and September 2017, barred the defendants from the allegedly illegal conduct and required the defendants to pay $500,000 for refunds to defrauded consumers.

Rust Consulting, Inc., the refund administrator for this matter, will begin mailing checks today. Consumers should receive their refund checks this month, and they must be cashed within 60 days or they will become void. The FTC never requires consumers to pay money or provide information to cash refund checks. Consumers who have questions, or feel they should have been included in the refund mailing but were not, should call 1-866-207-7028. New claims will be reviewed and if money is available, additional refunds may be provided.

FTC law enforcement actions led to more than $6.4 billion in refunds for consumers in a one-year period between July 2016 and June 2017. For more information about the FTC’s refund program, including its Annual Report, visit www.ftc.gov/refunds.

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357). Like the FTC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, read our blogs and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.