SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Commerce and the FTC reach a massive settlement with a Utah business that reportedly scammed thousands of people across the country out of over $100 million in a real estate scam.
Real estate scam
Investigators say Zurixx LLC and its executives, Cristopher Cannon, James Carlson and Jeffrey Spangler had thousands of victims all across the U.S. They say the company would use telemarketers and high-pressure sales tactics to convince people to attend a “free” or low-cost seminar. At the seminar, they would learn more about flipping houses. However, company officials reportedly lied about how much money their victims would get in return.
Utah Department of Commerce Executive Director Margaret Wooley Busse said, “Almost none of them saw any kind of return.”
Busse also says the company would convince their victims to buy into a more expensive real estate seminar. Then another, and another and so on. They also would allegedly encourage investors to open new credit cards, promising the profits would cover their debts. She says the scammers even had celebrity endorsements from Tarek and Christina El Moussa from “Flip Or Flop” and Hilary Farr from “Love It Or List It” to make the seminars seem more credible.
“[They] use high-profile celebrities to endorse their work and say, ‘Hey, you can have a lifestyle like us if you just participate in this,’” Busse said.
