FILE - The Federal Trade Commission building is seen, Jan. 28, 2015, in Washington. The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Arise Virtual Solutions, a gig work company, saying it misled consumers about the money they could make on its platform. –
In its complaint, the FTC said Arise made misleading advertisements, claiming people who signed up on their platform could get jobs paying up to $18 per hour doing remote customer service work. But when the company advertised the $18 per hour figure in 2020, its internal documents said the average pay for jobs on its platform was $12 an hour, and 99.9% of the consumers who joined its platform from 2019 to 2022 made less than $18 per hour, the FTC said.
“They sell them on these training courses that they have to pay for, but then a high proportion don’t pass the training and get the job, so they just paid for nothing,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, attorney and founding member of Lichten & Liss-Riordan, a law firm in Massachusetts. Liss-Riordan has sued Arise multiple times on behalf of workers.