FTC Seizes Army.com, Other Phony Military Recruitment Sites

The Federal Merchandise Committee has seized faux armed services recruitment websites, including ground forces.com, armyenlist.com, and navyenlist.com, which take been used to deceive consumers for years.

The websites, which appeared to exist affiliated with the US military but were in fact non, asked prospective military applicants to provide personal data—including their total proper noun, email address, phone number, and teaching history—in exchange for information well-nigh joining the armed forces, the FTC said.

Despite promising non to share the information with anyone else and only utilize it for military machine recruitment purposes, the operators of these copycat websites then sold the data equally marketing leads to postal service-secondary schools for $xv to $forty a pop.

"Those who are considering a military career deserve to take confidence that the recruitment site is legitimate and their personal information volition not be misused," FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a argument. "The FTC will take action against whatever party in the lead generation ecosystem—from sellers to purchasers—that fails to comply with the law."

The sites had been up and running since at least 2022. Those who submitted their data to these sites received phone calls from telemarketers who posed as members of the military machine promoting certain schools. The crooks placed "hundreds of thousands of illegal telemarketing calls to phone numbers on the National Do Not Telephone call Registry," the FTC wrote.

As role of a settlement with the FTC, the defendants have handed over command of the websites to the bureau.

Meanwhile, to contact an actual military recruiter, visit this Section of Defence force site. Official United states of america armed forces websites volition have the .mil domain, like army.mil.

"Before you fill out forms or applications on a site, observe out more about who is really requesting your information and for what purpose past doing an online search for the site operator with words like 'complaint' or 'review,'" the FTC recommended.

Almost Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo is PCMag'due south skilful on fitness and smart home products. Teaching yoga for well-nigh 10 years has helped her in evaluating a range of continued health products including fettle trackers, heart rate monitors, rowers, smart scales, stationary bikes, strength training machines, treadmills, and more. Angela also tests smart home devices from her ranch in Florida, including air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and robot vacuums, just to name a few.