The FTC continues to prioritize consumer protection, taking significant steps to eliminate fraud in the payments system by enforcing court orders. This story after the jump.
May 19, 2026
Bureau of Consumer Protection: Credit and Finance
- At the request of the FTC, a federal judge ordered Cliq Inc., formerly known as Cardflex Inc., along with executives Andrew Phillips and John Blaugrund, to pay $6.5 million in civil contempt sanctions for violating a 2015 order implemented to prevent the company from participating in consumer fraud. The court found that the payment processing company and its leadership violated the 2015 order by aiding scammers in circumventing fraud detection and risk monitoring systems, while also neglecting to carry out underwriting obligations, by processing hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions for merchants on the Mastercard’s Member Alert To Control High-risk merchants (MATCH) list.