FTC Action Affects Fla. RE Coach Targeting Latinos

WASHINGTON – In response to an action filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a federal court entered a temporary restraining order against the operators of a Florida-based business opportunity and real estate investment training scheme known as Ganadores Online and Ganadores Inversiones Bienes Raíces.

The FTC says it files complaints when it has reason to believe named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law, and it appears that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.

In the latest case, the FTC charge alleges that the companies behind Ganadores, their owners and key employees targeted Spanish-speaking consumers with “brazen and false money-making pitches for online businesses and real estate investments.”

Among other requirements, the order prohibits the defendants from making unsupported marketing claims, violating the Business Opportunity Rule and Cooling Off Rule, and from interfering with consumers’ ability to review Ganadores and its products. The court has appointed a temporary monitor over the Ganadores companies, instructed the companies to preserve their assets, and frozen the assets of their owners and principals.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the Ganadores scheme targeted Spanish-speaking consumers using false or unfounded promises that its “infallible system” can help consumers find financial freedom, replace their day jobs, and give their families financial independence.

“This scheme made grand promises of life-changing returns in Spanish but hid key terms in English-language contracts that many consumers could not read.” says Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “They took millions of dollars from Spanish-speaking consumers seeking to better their lives and provide for their families, and it’s time to hold them accountable for the significant injury they have caused.”

The FTC alleges that Ganadores’ leaders – Richard Alvarez, Robert Shemin and Bryce Chamberlain – previously participated in a similar scheme, Zurixx, that the FTC sued in 2019. The FTC also alleges that Richard and Sara Alvarez took part in FBA Stores, another similar scheme sued by the FTC in 2018.

The structure of the Ganadores operation closely mirrors those prior schemes. For example, according to the FTC’s complaint, Ganadores starts with social media and other online advertising touting free “seminars” coming to the viewer’s area, featuring Richard Alvarez and Shemin, who will share supposed strategies to make big money in real estate.

The FTC’s allegation claims that the seminars are nothing but a sales pitch for the company’s three-day workshops, which cost consumers hundreds of dollars to attend – and the workshops, are just a sales pitch that convinces attendees to pay more than $28,000 for “by the hand” mentoring services that will result in six-figure incomes.

While consumers are promised one-on-one mentoring by experts, the FTC claims that the “mentoring” rarely delivers on Ganadores’ promises. Customers “often interact with mentors in large group calls, are told to use public websites like Google or Zillow in lieu of the company’s often-faulty software, and they do not earn back the money they paid for the mentoring, let alone earn six-figure incomes.”

According to the FTC, disappointed consumers who seek refunds are denied, based on a “clause buried in the sales paperwork that gives consumers only three days to seek a refund.”

The complaint also charges that while the company’s marketing and sales are conducted largely in Spanish, the company’s contracts with their disclosures are often provided in English, despite the fact that many of their customers have limited to no English fluency.

According to the FTC, Ganadores and its principals, along with the companies behind the scheme (Vision Online, Inc., Ganadores IBR, Inc., Vision Online Digital, LLC, Vision Online English, LLC, Vision Online Latino, LLC) have pocketed millions of dollars from consumers while violating numerous laws, including the FTC Act, the Business Opportunity Rule, the Consumer Review Fairness Act, and the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule.

The FTC staff attorneys on the case are J. Ronald Brooke, Jr. and Virginia G. Rosa of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, though the FTC also thanked the Orlando Police Department for their assistance.

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