Lawyer Misled Consumers, Agency Says

A Los Angeles lawyer who advertised that he has “increased--even doubled, tripled and quadrupled” foreign clients’ chances of winning a State Department-run green card lottery has been accused of misleading his consumers, the Federal Trade Commission said Friday.

According to an FTC spokesman, attorney David L. Amkraut falsely represented his ability to improve clients’ chances of winning the random lottery under the diversity visa program. In addition, he jeopardized their chances by filing multiple entries and withholding application packages in order to pressure them into paying additional fees, said Howard Shapiro, the FTC spokesman.

“The service itself is not illegal. We took issue with the deceptive representations that Mr. Amkraut was making,” Shapiro said, adding that this is the first case of its kind the FTC has handled. “To the staff’s knowledge, there are not many lawyers with expertise in this kind of thing.”

Responding to the accusations, Amkraut said in an interview Friday: “We’ve done an excellent job, and we’ve done nothing wrong. I deny all the charges.”

In a proposed settlement to the formal complaint filed by the FTC, Amkraut has agreed to assist past clients from 1994 and 1995 in the upcoming February lottery free of charge.

“[We] do not have the resources to litigate this matter against a federal agency with billions of dollars in its budget,” the statement said. “Thus, we were willing to settle by providing a windfall to certain past customers.”

The charges nearly coincide with this year’s annual lottery to distribute 55,000 visas, which starts accepting entries Feb. 3. The diversity visa program is limited to those countries that have not been deemed “high admission.” Ineligible countries include Canada, China, the United Kingdom and Mexico, while eligible countries include Australia, the Bahamas, all African nations as well as many European, South American and Asian countries.

Amkraut’s advertisements appeared in newspapers worldwide--including Sri Lanka Express and the Ethiopian Mirror--with testimonials from green card recipients. The ads promised that through use of “loopholes,” the success rate of Amkraut’s clients would be boosted.

Furthermore, the ads promised: “Although some countries, including Great Britain, Canada and India, were not eligible ‘countries of birth,’ Amkraut discovered a legal loophole that allowed many such ‘natives’ to enter the lottery.”

According to the FTC’s complaint, Amkraut charged $50 for an individual and $75 for a married couple to submit an entry into the lottery. The lottery does not guarantee a green card; winners are given an opportunity to apply for a green card.

If the client was a lottery winner, the complaint said, Amkraut would offer to submit a visa application for an additional fee of $995 to $1,250, with the warning: “It is a mistake to try to do this on your own. . . . And you cannot risk a mistake. One small mistake could cause a delay that would prevent you from getting a green card.”

The FTC’s Shapiro said that because many people are unfamiliar with the State Department’s bureaucratic procedures, they buy into “outrageous claims that their chances of winning the lottery and getting a green card can be increased. That really gets their hopes up, and they are willing to put together the money to do it.”

The diversity visa program was created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 and has distributed 55,000 visas a year since then. Applicants have to be born in the eligible countries and have either the equivalent of a high school education or two years of work experience.

The State Department chooses more lottery winners than there are visas available--about 100,000--and the winners’ visa applications are processed on a first-come, first-served basis.

In November, the FTC issued a consumer alert on green card lottery scams, warning potential applicants that lottery selection is random--therefore nobody can help them increase their chances--and that entering more than once would lead to disqualification.

“Are there more cases like these out there? Hopefully not,” Shapiro said. “We’re hoping for a trickle-down effect, so that this will serve notice to anyone else conducting misleading operations.”