'Girls Gone Wild' Maker to Pay $1.1 Million
The maker of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series will pay $1.1 million to settle a complaint alleging that it wrongly charged consumers in a negative-option sales program, the Federal Trade Commission said Friday.Mantra Films Inc. and its owner, Joe Francis, faced charges, filed in December, that the company billed consumers for monthly shipments of DVDs and videos they didn't order. The FTC alleged that Mantra's advertising, which featured many late-night DRTV spots, failed to tell consumers how the continuity program operated.
About half the money to be paid by Mantra and Francis will be used to compensate consumers wrongly billed in the continuity program, the FTC said. The rest will be paid to the government as a civil penalty.
