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Commission authorizes Department of Justice to amend FTC complaint: The Department of Justice, with the authorization of the Commission, has filed an amended complaint in the matter currently pending against Srikanth Venkataraman, d/b/a Scorpio Systems, Ltd., for allegedly calling numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, failing to transmit its telephone number and name to consumers’ caller identification service, and failing to pay the fee required to access the Registry. The telemarketer transmitted either no caller ID or a phony caller ID and, as a result, consumers were unable to contact the telemarketer to stop unwanted telemarketing calls selling mortgage loans, refinancing, and other products and services. Through this action, the United States is adding the following defendants to the complaint: Software Transformations, Inc., and Sridhar Bhupatiraju. Software Transformations, Inc., is a successor corporation to Scorpio Systems, Ltd. Sridhar Bhupatiraju is an officer of Software Transformations, Inc. These defendants participated in a telemarketing operation that called numbers on the Do Not Call Registry and failed to pay the fees required to access the Registry.

The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the amended complaint was 5-0. (FTC File No. X06-0033, Docket No. 06-1928 (MCL); the staff contact is Stephen Cohen, Bureau of Consumer Protection, 202-326-3222; see press release dated May 8, 2006.)

Copies of the documents mentioned in this release are available from the FTC’s Web site at http://www.ftc.gov and from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. Call toll-free: 1-877-FTC-HELP.