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• Pending Government Action:

  Government Action: BBB reports on known government actions involving business’ marketplace conduct:

  DOJ/FTC Sue Telehealth Providers and Executives for Unfair and Deceptive Conduct
  

  The following describes a pending government action that has been formally brought by a government agency but has not yet been resolved. We are providing a summary of the governments allegations, which have not yet been proven.

  
  

  On June 10, 2024, the Justice Department, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced that the United States filed an amended complaint against telehealth company Cerebral Inc., Cerebral’s founder and former Chief Executive Officer, Kyle Robertson; former Cerebral executive Alex Martelli; telehealth companies Zealthy Inc., Gronk Inc. and Bruno Health P.A. and an executive of those companies, German Echeverry. The government has settled its claims against Cerebral, Inc. The proposed stipulated order pending approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida would require Cerebral to cease misusing and improperly disclosing patient information, misrepresenting its data privacy or security practices and misrepresenting its cancellation practices.

  
  

  The Justice Department continues to pursue relief arising from its claims against Robertson and Martelli, as well as telehealth companies Zealthy Inc., Gronk Inc. and Bruno Health P.A. and their executive German Echeverry. The amended complaint further alleges that Robertson continued to violate the FTC Act and ROSCA after he left Cerebral. In May 2022, Robertson founded another telehealth company, Zealthy Inc. (later renamed Gronk Inc.), which he heads alongside German Echeverry, its Medical Director. According to the Amended Complaint, through Zealthy and its affiliated medical corporation, Bruno Health, Robertson and Echeverry violated ROSCA by failing to clearly disclose material terms of online subscriptions before obtaining consumers’ billing information, by failing to obtain consumers’ express informed consent to those terms before charging their credit cards and by failing to provide consumers with a simple cancellation process to stop recurring charges. The government also alleges that Zealthy and its executives violated the FTC Act by committing unfair and deceptive business practices. Such practices include billing consumers for costs they did not knowingly agree to; misleading consumers about the terms of their telehealth subscriptions; disregarding consumers’ cancellation requests and making it challenging for consumers to cancel; and tracking, collecting, disclosing and using consumers’ sensitive, personal data in ways that were not fully disclosed to consumers and that consumers did not knowingly authorize.
  
  
  
  The department will continue to pursue civil penalties, injunctive relief and monetary relief against Robertson, Martelli, Echeverry, Bruno Health and Zealthy.

  
  

  https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2223087cerebralfirstamendedcmplt.pdf

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