Additional Information for Career Step, LLC

On July 30, 2024 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered Career Step, LLC(also doing business as CareerStep, CareerCert, and Carrus), to pay $43.5 million in debt cancellation and cash. The FTC alleges the company lured consumers, specifically servicemembers and their families, with deceptive ads that falsely touted inflated employment outcomes, job placement, and partnerships with prominent companies.

The FTC alleges that since at least 2019, Career Step has lured servicemembers with deceptive advertising on social media and on its website. Career Step has made false claims about job placement and outcomes, externships, hiring partnerships, and the duration of its programs, with the help of deceptive incentivized reviews it uses to promote its services.

The FTC’s complaint says that Career Step representatives have falsely promised to find jobs for consumers. For example, Career Step representatives have claimed that the “career placement team” will step in and find consumers the “perfect job.” In reality, Career Step does not provide any job placement. Career Step’s job search assistance is limited to help with resume-drafting or emailing links to job postings generally available on the internet.

The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge before it can go into effect, requires Career Step to pay $15.7 million, which the FTC will use for consumer redress. The company must also cancel approximately $27.8 million in debts owed to Career Step by current or former students who enrolled between February 2020 and February 2023. The stipulated order also prohibits Career Step from deceptively advertising any educational product or service.

Finally, Career Step must notify each third-party platform or website displaying a review written by a consumer to whom Career Step provided free services in exchange for the review about the FTC’s action against the company. The notice also must list all such reviews with enough information to allow the website or platform to easily identify them, and Career Step must inform the website or platform about the FTC order and request that the website or platform remove those reviews as soon as possible.