Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290068
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WASHINGTON - A get-rich-quick guru who has a history of run-ins with federal consumer officials was sued by the Federal Trade Commission for failing to pay $2.1 million in consumer refunds ordered after a 1991 case.
Wayne Phillips was charged by the FTC four years ago with touting false claims on a widely broadcast 30-minute infomercial called ``Money, Money, Money,'' about a $49.95 book that supposedly showed how to tap billions of dollars from government grants and loans.
Phillips agreed to settle FTC charges that he had misrepresented the availability of free and easy government cash and agreed to pay the FTC for refunds to buyers of his book.
The 1991 settlement called for as much as $2.1 million in refunds. But Phillips claimed he didn't have the money, so he was allowed to pay $50,000 within 15 days if FTC was satisfied he'd told the truth about his financial condition.
The FTC complaint says Phillips never paid a penny.
- Bloomberg Business News
Greyhound agrees to ticket settlement
WASHINGTON - Greyhound Lines Inc. will stop restricting locations where some smaller bus companies can sell tickets, under an agreement with the Justice Department announced Thursday.
The department's Antitrust Division filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Greyhound over the anti-competitive practice. At the same time, the government and the company proposed a settlement by having Greyhound agree to eliminate the restriction from all its leases.
Under the restriction, competing bus lines that lease space at Greyhound terminals couldn't sell tickets anywhere else within 25 miles. While agreeing to drop the rule, Dallas-based Greyhound, the nation's only cross-country bus company, said it was ``legal and enforceable.''
Anne K. Bingaman, the assistant attorney general who heads the Antitrust Division, called the proposed settlement ``a victory for less affluent consumers who must ride buses.''
- Associated Press
Reich seeks curbs on foreign labor
WASHINGTON - Some employers are abusing a program that lets them hire skilled foreigners temporarily when qualified Americans aren't available, Labor Secretary Robert Reich said Thursday.
The businesses are replacing U.S. workers - mainly in high-tech jobs - with aliens willing to work at significantly lower wages, Reich told a Senate Judiciary Committee panel. He asked senators to put new restrictions on the program as part of Republican efforts to overhaul the nation's immigration law.
In some cases, employers recruit foreigners into jobs for which Americans could be trained, and the foreign workers recruited are frequently ``underpaid, poorly trained and minimally qualified,'' he said.
- Associated Press
by CNB