Brief updates on the FTC’s Digital Altitude lawsuit;

  • the FTC’s motion for a final order with respect to default judgment against Digital Altitude has been taken under submission
  • Mary Dee and the FTC have reached a yet to be approved settlement
  • the Digital Altitude Receiver has filed his Third Interim Report

More details on each update below.

The FTC filed for default judgment against Digital Altitude back in April.

On November 8th the FTC filed an application for default judgment against Digital Altitude LLC, Aspire Processing LLC, Disc Enterprises Inc, Rise Systems and Enterprise LLC (Utah and Nevada), Soar International LLC, Digital Altitude Limited, Aspire Processing Limited and Aspire Ventures LTD.

A hearing was scheduled for January 7th 2019 but taken off the calendar on November 15th.

The November 15th order states the FTC’s motion has been taken under submission, meaning a decision will be made without further hearing.

On October 31st the FTC filed a joint motion requesting a stay of proceedings against Mary Dee.

The reason for the requested stay is a pending review of a signed settlement by the FTC Commissioners.

The joint motion states review of the settlement ‘will likely take
between eight and twelve weeks‘.

The application was granted on November 5th, staying proceedings against Mary Dee until January 21st, 2019.

The Digital Altitude Receiver filed his Third Interim Report on October 25th.

Items of interest in the report include:

  • recovery of $2 million as of September 30th, 2018 ($1.8 million held)
  • merchant account processors cooperating, except for one notable example in Mexico
  • John Souza is refusing to give back half a million in settlement overpayments to Paradise Media Ventures (made prior to the FTC’s lawsuit)

Legal action may be taken against Souza at some point.

There’s no specific mention of clawback litigation in the report but there is this sentence;

The Receiver is also investigating potential damage claims against third parties.

The Receiver will not file any actions against these third parties without first seeking Court approval.

Not sure whether Digital Altitude’s top affiliates count as “third-parties” but I imagine so.

Receivership fees currently stand at around 10% of recovered funds.

Either a lot more has to be recovered and soon’ish, or Receivership fees are quickly going to eat into what’s supposed to be returned to Digital Altitude victims.

One other thing I take issue with is the Receiver signing off his report with;

To foster communication with interested parties, the Receiver established the website www.digitalaltitudereceiver.com.

The Receiver continues to update this site regularly.

The Digital Altitude Receivership website hasn’t been updated since July.

I can’t link you a copy of the Receiver’s report because he’s done a crappy job of keeping the Receivership website updated.

 

Update March 10th 2019 – An approved $54 million dollar judgment against the Digital Altitude defendants has brought the FTC’s case to a close.