What official enforcement actions has the FTC or state attorneys general taken against similar supplement funnel scams in the last five years?
Executive summary
In the last five years the Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly used cease-and-desist orders, consumer restitution programs, and public enforcement actions against supplement marketers making deceptive health claims, sometimes coordinating with state attorneys general; the agency’s public reports document joint actions and recommend legislative changes to bolster remedies [1] [2]. Notable, documented cases include an FTC-ordered refund program for Rejuvica’s Sobrenix claims announced November 7, 2024 and earlier COVID-era actions stopping fraudulent supplement marketing, while state AGs have participated in parallel or joined suits cataloged in FTC collaboration appendices [3] [4] [5].
1. What enforcement tools the FTC and state AGs have used against supplement scams
The FTC’s playbook has centered on truth-in-advertising enforcement: administrative and federal court orders that bar deceptive health claims, require corrective advertising, and—when jurisdiction allows—mandate consumer refunds and disgorgement; the agency’s case docket and public statements show examples spanning the past half-decade [6] [7]. Because of legal limits recognized after AMG Capital, the FTC’s report to Congress explicitly urges reinstating authority to seek money for defrauded consumers and civil penalties, signaling that current remedies sometimes rely on coordination with state attorneys general or other entities to secure monetary relief [2] [1]. State attorneys general have complemented FTC actions by bringing parallel suits or joining multistate enforcement efforts, a pattern the FTC’s Collaboration Act study documents and quantifies for enforcement through March 26, 2024 [5] [1].
2. Representative cases that mirror “funnel” or deceptive-supplement schemes
The FTC publicly announced a consumer refund program tied to Rejuvica’s marketing of Sobrenix—an enforcement outcome in which refunds to approximately 536,000 consumers were arranged after the agency concluded the product’s claims were unsupported (announced November 7, 2024) [3]. Earlier pandemic-era actions targeted marketers touting supplements as COVID-19 cures or preventatives, with FTC orders halting those baseless health claims and securing injunctive relief [4]. The Commission’s health-claims enforcement list and press materials also catalog actions such as the Avadim/Theraworx matter, illustrating sustained attention to deceptive therapeutic claims in the supplement space [7].
3. How often these actions were paired with state AG involvement and why that matters
The FTC’s report to Congress recounts decades of collaboration and includes an appendix charting joint or parallel enforcement with state attorneys general and statewide agencies from January 1, 2020 through March 26, 2024, showing that monetary relief or broader remedies often flow from coordinated federal-state efforts [1] [5]. Observers and industry commentators expect this dynamic to continue: public-facing enforcement by the FTC can be amplified by state AGs who bring their own statutory authorities to seek consumer refunds or civil penalties the FTC cannot obtain under current case law—an implicit agenda reflected in the FTC’s legislative recommendations [2] [8].
4. Limits of the public record and what’s missing for “funnel scam” specificity
The available reporting and FTC materials document numerous supplement-related enforcement actions and collaborative mechanisms but do not systematically label or isolate “funnel” marketing models (subscription traps, backend continuity programs, or complex lead-generation funnels) as a separate category in the public appendices cited; the FTC’s collaboration report and case lists provide case names and remedies but stop short of a canonical taxonomy that maps each enforcement action to a specific funnel-scam structure [1] [6]. Therefore, while there is clear evidence the FTC and state AGs have pursued deceptive supplement claims, precise counts of enforcement actions specifically targeting the marketing architecture of “funnels” versus claims-based fraud are not available in the provided sources [1] [6].