Opinion ID: 242260
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Representations as to Earnings.

Text: 72 The Commission found that earnings of $1,452 in eleven days, $1,368 in seven days and $1,302 in ten days are not typical earnings of salesmen selling the petitioner's course. One of the exhibits in the record which the petitioner admitted that he disseminated, contained, among other things, the following statement: 73 Meet a few of our salesmen. 74 Below it were photographs of three persons, G. Worthingham, whose earnings for eleven days were listed as $1452, W. H. Orledge, whose earnings for seven days were listed as $1368 and S. Buda, whose earnings for ten days were $1302. Under each photograph topping the listing of the dates on which the various amounts which comprised the total were made, was the legend 'Typical earnings with us'. The vice of the advertisement lay in the fact that these earnings were, in no way, typical. They were exceptional. For they represented persons who had devoted much time and were assisted by others in selling the course. And the petitioner testified that he 'would consider a man a very good man if he made one sale a day'. For that he would receive $22.50. The sales price was $35. And the payment of a commission of $22.50 of this price is, by itself, of the character to induce salesmen to resort to questionable practices, which it is the duty of the Commission to prohibit. 75 So the Commission was justified in enjoining the representation that the typical earnings of persons selling the petitioner's course of instruction are greater than they actually are in fact. 76