Pump & Dump

The rebate was the room. The patient never saw the door.

On July 14, 2026, CVS Caremark settled with the FTC over the rebate machinery that sat between patients and the price of their medicine. The savings are projected in billions. The mechanism was built one prescription at a time.

Latest
Pump & Dump

The tip was pre-selected. That was the whole business.

The travel app promised cheap flights and told users to tip their booking assistant. The FTC says the tip was never really optional. It was the product.

Pump & Dump

The notification said someone liked her. The someone did not exist.

Between 2016 and 2018, nearly half a million people bought Match.com subscriptions within 24 hours of getting a message from an account the company already suspected was fake. The $14 million settlement closes a case the FTC originally valued at $884 million.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The down payment was the product. The pool was the prop.

Tracy Davenport sold the dream of an inground pool to more than fifty Kentucky families. What she was actually selling was the down payment itself, and a federal judge just put a number on it.

The Daily Brief

The yacht, the Bentley, the diamond ring, and the kid who borrowed against his car

Elena Ruiz · May 18

Connecticut tightens the screws on a towing playbook that turned cars into inventory

Ray Delgado · May 1

Three out of four products failed. That was not an accident.

Mark Tell · Apr 30

The judge signed the order on a Monday. The $4.72 billion stays on the books.

Mark Tell · Apr 30
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