'Ganadores' schemes targeted Spanish-speaking consumers, feds charge

Like everyone else, Spanish-speaking consumers are eager to boost their income. That makes them vulnerable to bogus money-making pitches for online businesses and real estate investments, including what the Federal Trade Commission calls the Ganadores (Spanish for "winners") schemes.

The U.S. agency has filed an action that has temporarily shut down two Florida-based business opportunity schemes, Ganadores Online and Ganadores Inversiones Bienes Raíces ("Winners Real Estate Investments").

The FTC charges that the companies behind Ganadores, their owners, and key employees targeted Spanish-speaking consumers with brazen and false money-making pitches for online businesses and real estate investments.

Among other requirements, the temporary restraining order prohibits the defendants from making unsupported marketing claims, violating the Business Opportunity Rule and Cooling Off Rule, and from interfering with consumers’ ability to review Ganadores and its products.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the Ganadores scheme has targeted Spanish-speaking consumers claiming that its “infallible system” can help consumers find financial freedom, replace their day jobs, and give their families financial independence.

“This scheme made grand promises of life-changing returns in Spanish, but hid key terms in English-language contracts that many consumers could not read.” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“They took millions of dollars from Spanish-speaking consumers seeking to better their lives and provide for their families, and it’s time to hold them accountable for the significant injury they have caused,” Levine said.

Not their first rodeo

The FTC alleges that individuals in leadership positions with Ganadores—Richard Alvarez, Robert Shemin, and Bryce Chamberlain—previously participated in a similar scheme, Zurixx, that was sued by the FTC in 2019. The FTC also alleges that Richard and Sara Alvarez took part in FBA Stores, another similar scheme sued by the FTC in 2018.

The structure of the Ganadores operation closely mirrors those prior schemes.  For example, according to the FTC’s complaint, Ganadores starts with social media and other online advertising touting free “seminars” coming to the viewer’s area where Richard Alvarez and Shemin will share supposed strategies to make big money in real estate.

In fact, the FTC charges, these seminars are nothing but a sales pitch for the company’s three-day workshops, which cost consumers hundreds of dollars to attend. At the seminars, company salespeople claim that those who attend the workshops will learn everything they need to know to make money either running online businesses or investing in real estate.

The workshops, however, are just another step in a sales funnel that points attendees to pay more than $28,000 for “by the hand” mentoring services that will supposedly result in purchasers making six-figure incomes, according to the FTC.

While consumers are promised one-on-one mentoring by experts in online sales or real estate, six-figure incomes, and access to special money-making software, the FTC charges that the “mentoring” rarely delivers on Ganadores’ promises.

Customers often interact with mentors in large group calls, are told to use public websites like Google or Zillow in lieu of the company’s often-faulty software, and they do not earn back the money they paid for the mentoring, let alone earn six-figure incomes.

Three days to seek a refund

The FTC charges that when consumers realize that Ganadores’ services are not what they promised and seek refunds, the defendants unfairly rely on a clause buried in the sales paperwork that gives consumers only three days to seek a refund.

The complaint also charges that while the company’s marketing and sales are conducted largely in Spanish, the company’s contracts with their disclosures are often provided in English, despite the fact that many of their customers have limited to no English fluency.

The FTC is asking the court to permanently stop Ganadores’ practices and return funds to consumers injured by the Ganadores scheme.