Judge bars telemarketer from operating in Iowa

DES MOINES - An Iowa judge has barred a Las Vegas-based company from telemarketing health and nutrition-related products to Iowans, according to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.

The judicial action came Thursday after an undercover phone line recorded telemarketers making unsupported, misleading and illegal claims about its oral spray's effects on cancer, diabetes, arthritis and other serious diseases and conditions, according to a news release issued by Miller's office.

Polk County District Court Judge Michael Huppert issued an injunction against Americare Inc., doing business as Americare Health, its owner, Mario S. Gonzalez, and two of its telemarketers, Phillip Baker and Nancy Carol Thompson, all believed to reside in the Las Vegas area.

The injunction - part of a consent judgment in which the defendants denied liability - also requires the defendants to refrain from collecting any payments for past sales to Iowans, and to provide refunds to any Iowans who request them.

In April, a Consumer Protection Division undercover phone line in the Iowa Attorney General's Office recorded Americare telemarketers making what Miller calls outrageous health claims for the company's human growth hormone (HGH) spray, which the company sells for $249 per bottle, according to Miller.

'The Americare telemarketers claimed its HGH spray prevents cancer and is ‘the only known product that has actually been proven to kill cancer cells,'” Miller said in a statement. 'They thought they were calling the home of an older Iowan but, in fact, they had called our undercover phone line and were speaking to a staff member recording the call. The claims they made in this hard sell were simply outrageous.”

The call contained numerous false product claims, according to the Iowa Attorney General. The telemarketers said that using the HGH spray would allow the elderly Iowan to get off all of her other medications, in addition to effectively treating arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and asthma, among other diseases and conditions.