FTC Fines Payday Lenders $800k, Says Website Tricked Consumers

A pair of con artists who operated a service that matched payday loan seekers with lenders have agreed to pay $800,000 -- as well as the proceeds from the sale of a house -- to settle Federal Trade Commission charges they deceived hundreds of thousands of payday loan applicants into ordering unwanted prepaid debit cards.

According to the FTC's complaint, Matthew Patterson, Mark Benning, Jason Strober, and Swish Marketing, Inc., operated a number of websites advertising short-term, or "payday," loan matching services. The websites also included an online loan application form that fooled consumers into unwittingly ordering a debit card when they applied for an online loan.