Business Blog
Small business people are among those getting $100 million back due to FTC action challenging Benefytt Technologies’ sham health plans
Finding healthcare coverage can be a challenge for many Americans, including gig workers, the self-employed, and people at small businesses. So when consumers were looking for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, plans sold by an outfit called Benefytt Technologies seemed like a reasonable option – except that according to the FTC, what Benefytt sold hundreds of thousands of consumers wasn’t comprehensive health insurance, wasn’t ACA-qualified, and often left them unprotected in a medical crisis. But there’s finally some good news for Benefytt customers. Due to the settlement of an FTC law enforcement action, they’ll be receiving close to $100 million in refunds.
In addition to the financial remedy, the FTC settlement prohibits the company from making misrepresentations about its products or charging illegal junk fees. A separate order bans Benefytt’s CEO from selling or marketing any healthcare-related product. The company’s former Vice President of Sales is subject to the same ban, but also is banned from telemarketing. How long will those bans last? Forever.
If you’re one of 463,629 consumers who will receive checks soon, cash them within 90 days. If you have questions, contact refund administrator Epiq Systems at 888-574-3126 or check out the FTC’s FAQs about refund programs for more information.
By the way, the FTC never – we’ll say it again: NEVER – requires people to pay money or provide account information to get a refund. If someone claims to be from the FTC and asks for money or your account details, it’s a scam.
When it comes to the fight against deceptive and unfair practices, the FTC’s mission is to protect all consumers – and that includes small businesses owners, gig workers, freelancers, and other targeted by marketers that don’t tell the truth. Further proof of that commitment: just-announced settlements totaling $59 million with Womply and Biz2Credit for making misleading claims to small business owners about PPP loans and the recent amendment to the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule to cover misrepresentations made in telemarketing calls to businesses.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.