FTC To BlueHippo: You Have Duped 35,000 Consumers And That Is Enough!

I originally wrote about BlueHippo and the allegations that were brought against the company back on July 16, 2007 [here] and again on June 5, 2009 [here] when BlueHippo was fined $5 million dollars by the FTC. But now the FTC is filing new charges against BlueHippo, which includes the fact that some 35,000 consumers have been duped by BlueHippo into believing the company was a legitimate business. The charges, which can be read in a court filing by the FTC, linked below, make some  starling revelations about how BlueHippo functions.

The court document states:

Declaring “BlueHippo to the Rescue,” defendants BlueHippo Funding, LLC, BlueHippo Capital, LLC (collectively, “BlueHippo”) and their owner Joseph K. Rensin (together with BlueHippo, “Contempt Defendants”) aggressively market BlueHippo as a company in the business of financing computers to credit-challenged consumers. In reality, BlueHippo is in no such business. In fact, in the year following entry of this Court’s Stipulated Final Judgment and Order for a Permanent Injunction (“Order”), BlueHippo financed – at most – a single computer to the over 35,000 consumers who had contracted with BlueHippo in time to receive computers by year’s end.

Ironically, while BlueHippo failed to finance computers for these duped consumers – those same consumers financed BlueHippo with more than $15 million in payments. Contempt Defendants not only lie about the nature of BlueHippo’s business, but also about when and whether consumers would receive merchandise once consumers meet all of their onerous conditions.

Moreover, adding insult to injury, consumers desperate to get out of Contempt Defendants’ money pit find that Blue Hippo’s “store credit” refund policy contains onerous conditions that were not disclosed when they placed their orders. Contempt Defendant’s failure to disclose these conditions to any of the company’s more than 61,000 post-Order customers, who in total paid BlueHippo more than $21 million, also violates the Order.

If these allegations are true, one would hope that the FTC would be able to seize all of the assets of the company and pay back the money to the victims of this scam.

Have you ordered a computer from BlueHippo? If so what has your experience been? Are these allegations true?

Comments welcome.

Complete filing by the FTC against BlurHippo in .pdf format