Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Sues Debt Settlement Company FDATR, Inc., and Owners Dean Tucci and Kenneth Wayne Halverson

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) filed a lawsuit against FDATR, Inc., and its owners, Dean Tucci and Kenneth Wayne Halverson. The Bureau alleges that FDATR, Tucci, and Halverson violated the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) by engaging in deceptive and abusive telemarketing acts or practices and the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (CFPA) through deceptive acts or practices. FDATR was a corporation headquartered in Wood Dale, Illinois, that promised to provide student-loan debt-relief and credit-repair services to consumers nationwide. Tucci and Halverson both owned and managed FDATR, which was involuntarily dissolved in September 2020. The Bureau’s complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeks injunctions against FDATR, Tucci, and Halverson, as well as damages, redress to consumers, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and the imposition of civil money penalties.

The Bureau specifically alleges that from 2011 through at least April 2019, the defendants engaged in abusive telemarketing by requesting and taking payments from consumers for debt-relief and credit-repair services before achieving the results it promised and before it was legally allowed to do so under the TSR. The Bureau also alleges that during this same period, the defendants used deception in violation of the TSR and CFPA to attract consumers by misrepresenting material aspects of its student-loan debt-relief services. For example, the defendants falsely represented that its services would reduce or eliminate student-loan payments and improve credit scores. The Bureau further alleges that defendants’ violations of the TSR constituted violations of the CFPA. In addition, the Bureau alleges that Tucci and Halverson are individually liable under the TSR and CFPA because they knew of, directed, and engaged in the violations described in the complaint and substantially assisted FDATR.

The complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendants have violated the law.

A copy of the complaint filed in federal district court in the Northern District of Illinois is available at: https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_fdatr-inc-dean-tucci-and-kenneth-wayne-halverson_complaint_2020-11.pdf

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit www.consumerfinance.gov.