Indiana AG’s Suit Seeks to Halt Robocalling Broker From Harming Hoosiers

Indiana Attorney General Theodore Rokita (R) went to U.S. District Court for Indiana in Indianapolis Tuesday seeking a permanent injunction to enjoin MV Realty, five of its subsidiaries and three of its officers “from further pursuit of an aggressive and illegal robocalling and telemarketing operation” targeting Indiana homeowners, said his complaint (docket 1:23-cv-01578).

The defendants offer homeowners cash payments in exchange for a future interest in the sale of the homeowner’s real property, said the complaint. The homeowner benefit agreement (HBA), as their offer is called, is “nothing more than a disguised extension of credit with implicit interest to be paid back by the homeowner at a future date,” it said. Through their misrepresentations and omissions of information related to the HBA program's true nature, the defendants “have caused substantial and ongoing harm to Hoosier homeowners,” it said.

The marketing, sale and servicing of the HBAs are illegal, unfair, deceptive and abusive under numerous federal and state consumer protection statutes, including the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, said the complaint. The Indiana AG seeks to permanently enjoin the defendants’ illegal conduct, plus “void and release” all HBA contracts and related liens attaching to real property and obtain restitution for consumer victims, it said.

MV Realty began aggressively marketing the HBAs in Florida in 2019 and quickly expanded the program to at least 32 states, including Indiana, said the complaint. AGs in Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania sued MV Realty to halt the HBA offerings in their states, and Massachusetts and North Carolina won preliminary injunctions, it said.

The defendants market the HBA program as a “loan alternative,” offering a $300 to $5,000 payment if the homeowner agrees to use MV Realty as their listing agent if they decide to sell their home in the next 40 years, said the complaint. In Indiana, MV Realty paid its sales agents more in commission than 118 homeowners were paid to sign an HBA, it said. The HBA grants MV Realty “a purported right to receive sales proceeds from homeowners, resulting in a minimum 10x rate of return for MV Realty upon repayment,” it said. For a “token amount of money” paid to a homeowner, MV Realty “unfairly stands to gain potentially tens of thousands of dollars in return,” it said.

MV Realty “boasted” it grew from 7,800 HBA contracts nationally in 2021 to 32,000 in 2022 and was “on track” to exceed 100,000 in 2023, said the complaint. To meet those aggressive goals, MV Realty relied on its “relentless illegal robocalling and telemarketing campaign,” it said. It devised a robocalling and telemarketing scheme that targeted Hoosiers on the Indiana do not call list and national DNC registry, it said. The robocalls and telemarketing calls “invaded Hoosiers' privacy and resulted in monetary losses to Hoosiers, including consumers,” it said.

The defendants controlled the telemarketing and robocalling operation from their headquarters in Florida, said the complaint. They gave their employees sales scripts and leads to call, it said. They used third-party platforms to initiate or make telephone solicitations, and to leave prerecorded messages on Hoosiers' voicemails, it said.

The FCC investigated MV Realty’s use of the PhoneBurner platform for telemarketing and robocalling. On Jan. 24, the FCC ordered all U.S.-based voice service providers “to prevent the transmission on their networks of suspected illegal robocall traffic from MV Realty using the PhoneBurner platform,” it said. The commission estimates MV Realty placed nearly 12 million calls to numbers on the national DNC registry, it said.

Once the defendants obtained a lead, they aggressively telemarketed the HBA program to consumers, said the complaint. Hoosiers who asked to opt out of MV Realty's telemarketing campaigns continued being inundated by the calls, it said. MV Realty didn’t have or follow an internal DNC procedure or policy, nor did MV Realty avoid calling Hoosiers on the Indiana DNC list or the national DNC registry, it said: “Thus, Hoosiers had no effective way to stop or avoid receiving MV Realty's telemarketing calls.”

Call detail records produced by PhoneBurner for Indiana AG investigators found MV Realty made or initiated nearly 29,500 phone solicitations to numbers with an Indiana area code, said the complaint. It also left about 17,300 prerecorded voicemails on phones with an Indiana area code, it said. It made or initiated nearly 12,500 phone solicitations to Hoosiers on the national DNC registry, it said: “The data produced by PhoneBurner is a conservative estimate of calls initiated by or on behalf of MV Realty.” The Indiana AG hasn’t obtained complete call records from PhoneBurner, from MV Realty's sales agents who used their personal phones to call consumers, or from MV Realty's telemarketing vendors that initiated phone solicitations on MV Realty’s behalf, it said.