John N. Beck II, a marketer of so-called get-rich-quick systems, filed for bankruptcy protection after a federal court imposed a lifetime ban that put him out of the infomercial and telemarketing businesses, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Beck listed assets of as much as $10 million and debt of as much as $500 million in chapter 11 documents filed yesterday. A court ordered Beck and other marketers of three systems including "John Beck's Free & Clear Real Estate System" to pay $478 million for deceiving close to 1 million consumers, the Federal Trade Commission said in an Aug. 23 statement. "The court found that despite the marketers’ easy-money claims for the systems, which cost $39.95 each, nearly all the consumers who bought them lost money," the FTC said.
