A company that promised to finance computer purchases for poor co...
A company that promised to finance computer purchases for poor consumers has flouted an earlier settlement and court order, the Federal Trade Commission told the U.S. District Court in New York in a filing for contempt charges. BlueHippo told…
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consumers they could buy computers by providing the company a down payment and 13 weekly payments, but most didn’t receive the computers, including those who met its user-unfriendly “undisclosed conditions,” the FTC alleged in the original lawsuit. It got a $3.5 million settlement with the company in April 2008, requiring BlueHippo to stop allegedly deceiving customers, but the company “aggressively” marketed itself the rest of the year, signing up more than 35,000 customers but providing “at most a single financed computer,” the commission said. “Complaints about the company poured into the Better Business Bureau” and BlueHippo didn’t turn in a required compliance document, requiring the FTC to notify the court. After BlueHippo started ordering thousands of computers in April 2009, it failed to order computers for about two in five qualifying customers, and took six months on average to deliver computers to the rest, far more than the advertised three to four week time frame, the commission alleged. The contempt filing also said BlueHippo didn’t disclose important parts of its refund policy, including limitations on how customers who cancelled their order could use store credits for similar items. The commission’s online announcement was paired with a short video featuring Chairman Jon Leibowitz casually explaining the case. Announcements often include links to legal documents but not other forms of media. A spokeswoman told us the commission shoots and posts such videos “from time to time, but we've done a handful.”