Corporate Greed Case Study: Aliya Health Group and Mercury Marketing & Their Impact on Addiction Treatment Patients
TLDR: A network of marketing and healthcare companies engineered a multimillion-dollar scheme targeting Americans seeking help for substance use disorders. According to a legal complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, the operation used deceptive Google search ads to impersonate hundreds of legitimate addiction treatment centers across the country.
When vulnerable individuals called the phone numbers in these ads, believing they were contacting a chosen facility, they were instead funneled to a telemarketing call center.
There, agents allegedly used high-pressure sales scripts to continue the deception, deflecting questions and lying to callers to obtain their insurance information. The ultimate goal was to divert patients with lucrative private insurance plans to the defendants’ own treatment facility in Malibu, California, regardless of the patient’s location, preference, or clinical needs.
Read on to uncover the full extent of the operation, the corporate mindset behind it, and the systemic failures that allowed it to flourish.
Introduction: A Desperate Call for Help
A woman’s voice cracks with desperation on the other end of the line. She believes she has called Harmony, a treatment center in Estes Park, where she has been four times before. She needs help now. The agent on the phone, however, is not from Harmony. The agent works for a call center with a different agenda.
Instead of connecting the woman to the facility she sought, the agent informs her that a “clinical team” has reviewed her case and recommends a “higher level of care” at Malibu Detox in California, a facility with “immediate bed openings.” The woman is distraught. “But I need help now!” she says, her voice breaking. “How am I gonna get there?”
The agent is reassuring and persistent, describing a private jet, a luxury house with a nutritionist and a private chef, all covered at no cost. When the woman cries, worried about getting on a plane to detox, the agent tells her, “It’s okay, you’re gonna get on an airplane.”
This is a glimpse into a sophisticated, nationwide operation alleged in a federal complaint to have systematically preyed on the vulnerability of people at their lowest point, turning their search for help into a lucrative sales funnel.
Inside the Allegations: A System Built on Deception
The Federal Trade Commission alleges a predatory two-phase scheme orchestrated by a web of corporate and individual defendants. The operation was designed to intercept and divert individuals seeking substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. The entire business model was built on a foundation of calculated deception, from the first click on a search ad to the final, high-pressure sales call.
Phase One: The Digital Bait-and-Switch
The scheme began with digital deception on a massive scale. The “Mercury Defendants,” a group centered around Mercury Marketing, LLC, created thousands of deceptive Google search ads. Using a feature called Dynamic Keyword Insertion, they designed these ads to impersonate the specific treatment facilities that people were searching for.
If a person in crisis searched for “Cumberland Heights Nashville TN,” they would see a sponsored ad at the top of the results with the headline, “Cumberland Heights Nashville TN – Admissions Department.” The ad would urge them to “Reach Out For Help. Speak with an Admissions Agent Now.” A clickable phone number was provided. The same ad template was used for hundreds of other facilities, from “The Menninger Clinic” to “Valley Hope.”
These ads were a mirage. The phone numbers did not belong to Cumberland Heights, Menninger, or any of the other impersonated clinics. They belonged to the Mercury Defendants, who instantly and seamlessly routed the calls to their clients, primarily the “Malibu Defendants” and their telemarketing call center, Behavioral Healthcare Group of America (BHG). Between 2021 and 2022 alone, Mercury Marketing paid Google more than $18 million for these ads, generating an income of at least $21.9 million from selling the resulting leads.
Phase Two: High-Pressure Telemarketing and Patient Diversion
Once a caller was on the line, the second phase of the deception began. Telemarketers, known as “fronters,” were trained to continue the masquerade. When directly asked if they were a specific clinic, agents would deflect, responding with vague phrases like, “This is the admissions department, correct,” or, “I’m a central admissions line for substance abuse and mental health.”
The primary goal was to extract, or “snake,” as agents reportedly called it, the caller’s insurance information. Fronters were allegedly instructed to lie to callers who had been to a facility before, claiming that federal HIPAA laws required their records to be wiped, forcing them to provide their insurance details again.
With this information, the fronters would promise to consult with a “clinical team.” The result of this “consultation” was almost always the same for patients with good private insurance: a recommendation for treatment at Malibu Detox in California. Agents would praise the facility’s luxury amenities while dismissing the caller’s desire to stay close to home, often telling them they needed to change their “people, places, and things.” In one recorded call, after a consumer declined the recommendation to fly to Malibu, the agent stated, “Look, sir, it’s morally wrong to go somewhere that you haven’t been clinically recommended to go to,” before the consumer hung up in frustration.
A Timeline of Alleged Misconduct
| Date | Event |
| Since Jan. 2021 | The Mercury Defendants began using deceptive Google Search Ads to generate leads for SUD treatment facilities. |
| June 2021 | Defendant Christopher LiVolsi sent deceptive call center scripts to Malibu Detox’s Director of Admissions, formalizing the telemarketing scheme. |
| Jan. 2021 – May 2022 | Mercury Marketing billed Malibu Detox and its call center (BHG) nearly $1.8 million for over 25,000 ad clicks. |
| 2021-2022 | Mercury Marketing’s income from selling these deceptive leads totaled at least $21.9 million. |
| December 2022 | Key defendants were officially notified that they were under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. |
| June 2023 | The “Aliya Defendants” purchased the assets of Malibu Detox and allegedly continued using the same deceptive marketing and telemarketing services. |
| October 2023 | Reports indicate the scheme continued, with call center agents still handling calls from consumers trying to reach other facilities. |
| July 2024 | The Mercury Defendants allegedly continued to run ads impersonating unaffiliated SUD treatment facilities. |
Profit Maximization at All Costs: “This is Sales, Not a Helpline”
The entire operation was a chilling example of corporate ethics prioritizing profit above all else. The system was not designed to help patients find the most suitable care. It was designed to convert leads with valuable insurance plans into admissions for Malibu Detox. This profit-driven motive is laid bare in the defendants’ own internal communications and performance metrics.
JLux Consulting, LLC, and its owner Jennifer Russ were hired to analyze call center performance. Russ provided detailed monthly reports to the scheme’s alleged architects—Christopher LiVolsi, Robby Stempler, and Dennis Rinker—critiquing individual agents. These reports reveal a culture where honesty was a liability and deception was a key performance indicator.
Agents were criticized for acting like “directory assistance” if they provided a caller with the correct phone number for the facility they were trying to reach. One agent was flagged for “still having issues with repeating ‘This is the admission department’ when callers ask if [it’s] a specific facility. This frustrates callers.” Another critique noted an agent “knows a lot about recovery, he just needs to keep in mind this is sales, not a helpline. When callers ask is this… He sometimes answers no.”
Conversely, agents were praised for “snaking VOBs [verifications of insurance benefits]” from callers who clearly intended to go elsewhere. Management was laser-focused on overcoming patient objections, particularly the “travel barrier.”
One report recommended a “refresh on overcoming travel barriers,” coaching agents to “Pitch getting the right help once and for all, changing people, places, etc.” The message was clear: the patient’s initial choice, geographic needs, and personal comfort were obstacles to be managed, not respected. This was less healthcare for addicts than it was a sales pipeline to line the pockets of the corpo executives!
The Public Health Fallout: Weaponizing a Crisis
The unethical actions of the evil corporations a significant threat to public health. The substance use disorder crisis is one of the most pressing medical challenges facing the nation. In this context, the defendants’ scheme did not just mislead consumers, it actively interfered with the delivery of life-saving medical care.
By intercepting desperate calls for help, the operation created dangerous delays in treatment. For individuals in the throes of addiction, every hour can be critical. Diverting them through a confusing and deceptive telemarketing process could mean the difference between entering recovery and a fatal overdose.
Furthermore, the scheme undermined the very concept of patient-centered care. Treatment was recommended based not on a clinical assessment of a patient’s needs, but on the value of their insurance policy. A patient in New Jersey, with a strong local support system and a desire to enter a nearby clinic, was told to fly to California because their insurance would cover it. This one-size-fits-all approach, driven by revenue, ignores the complex medical and psychological factors essential for successful, long-term recovery. It treated vulnerable human beings as commodities to be acquired.
Exploitation of Workers: Cogs in a Deceptive Machine
The complaint also sheds light on the exploitation of the call center workers themselves. While not victims in the same way as the patients, these “fronters” were placed in a position where their livelihood depended on their ability to deceive. The corporate defendants devised the scripts, created the incentives, and monitored performance, building a system that rewarded manipulation.
Fronters earned bonuses based on their performance, measured by factors like their conversion rate and the number of “admits” they secured per month. Patients who could pay with cash were especially prized. This structure created immense pressure on employees to adhere to the deceptive scripts, even when faced with confused, angry, or emotionally distraught callers.
The detailed critiques from Jennifer Russ show a management team that viewed its employees as instruments of a sales strategy. Agents were not trained on how to provide empathetic guidance. They were coached on how to “pivot” from a direct question to a request for insurance, how to handle “objections to traveling,” and how to avoid giving a straight answer. The system instrumentalized its own workers, forcing them to become the front line of a scheme that harmed the very people they were hired to “help.”
Community Impact: Eroding Trust in a System of Last Resort
The alleged scheme inflicted harm far beyond the individuals who were diverted to Malibu. It struck at the heart of the addiction treatment ecosystem, a fragile network that relies on trust. For people with substance use disorders and their families, the decision to seek help is monumental, often coming after years of struggle. By impersonating legitimate facilities, the defendants allegedly poisoned the well of trust for the entire sector.
Every person who called a trusted local clinic only to be met with deception and a high-pressure sales pitch was taught a harsh lesson: the system is not what it seems. This erosion of trust has devastating consequences. It can deter individuals from making another call, reinforcing feelings of hopelessness and isolation that are often barriers to recovery. The defendants’ actions created a landscape where it became harder for vulnerable people to distinguish between a genuine lifeline and a predatory sales funnel.
The PR Machine: How Corporate Spin Becomes an Operational Tactic
In this operation, public relations and corporate spin were the core of the business model. The defendants did not need a separate PR team to manage their reputation because the entire public-facing part of the company was an elaborate fabrication. The deception was the product.
The call center scripts, meticulously crafted and enforced, were the primary tool of this spin. Agents were trained to use the language of healthcare—”admissions department” , “clinical team” , “higher level of care” —to mask a purely commercial transaction. This strategic use of language created a veneer of legitimacy, disarming callers and making them more susceptible to manipulation.
The very URLs registered by the defendants, such as “help.admission-now.com”, were part of this calculated spin. They were designed to project an image of a helpful, centralized resource. In reality, they were just another doorway into the same narrow, profit-driven pipeline that led to the defendants’ own facility.
Wealth Disparity and Corporate Greed: A Portrait of Extraction
The FTC complaint paints a damning picture of wealth being extracted from one of society’s most vulnerable populations. While individuals and families struggled with the life-or-death realities of addiction, a small group of corporate officers and their companies were allegedly reaping millions. The financial figures documented in the complaint reveal the immense profitability of the scheme.
Mercury Marketing’s income from selling leads was at least $9 million in 2021 and $12.9 million in 2022. This revenue was generated by charging clients, including the Malibu Defendants, for the thousands of phone calls produced by the deceptive ads. This created a closed loop of enrichment for the key players.
Defendant Christopher LiVolsi, for instance, sat at the center of this web. As the majority owner of the lead generator, Mercury Marketing , and a part-owner of the treatment facility, Malibu Detox, he allegedly profited from both ends of the deceptive transaction. This structure, where the marketer and the service provider are intertwined, showcases a system designed for maximum personal gain, transforming a public health crisis into a private wealth-building opportunity.
Corporate Accountability Fails the Public: A Blatant Disregard for the Law
Perhaps the most damning indictment of the defendants’ conduct is that it allegedly continued even after they were fully aware they were under federal investigation. In December 2022, the FTC notified LiVolsi, Stempler, Rinker, and their key corporate entities that their practices were being scrutinized for potential violations of federal law. The company considering purchasing their assets, Aliya Health Group, was also made aware of the investigation.
The defendants did not cease their activities. The Aliya Defendants proceeded with the purchase of Malibu Detox’s facilities in June 2023 and continued using BHG’s call center, Mercury’s advertising, and JLux’s analytics. Deceptive ads were still being disseminated as late as July 2024, more than a year and a half after the FTC’s initial notice.
This demonstrates a profound failure of corporate accountability. The alleged response to a federal investigation was not to correct course, but to continue profiting from the very practices under scrutiny. This suggests a corporate culture that views legal and regulatory oversight not as a moral or ethical boundary, but as a calculated risk to be managed while business continues as usual.
Profiting from Complexity: How Obscurity Shields Misconduct
The corporate structure of the operation appears deliberately complex, utilizing a web of limited liability companies (LLCs) and holding companies that obscures ownership and diffuses responsibility. The entities named in the complaint include Mercury Marketing, LLC; Behavioral Healthcare Group of America, LLC; JLux Consulting LLC; Malibu Detox, LLC; Malibu Recovery Center, LLC; Aliya Health Group, LLC; Fennaside, LLC ; and JHEL Holdings, LLC.
This intricate structure is a hallmark of late-stage capitalism, where corporate opacity becomes a strategic asset. For example, defendant Robby Stempler’s 80% ownership stake in Malibu Detox was held through his company, JHEL Holdings, LLC. Similarly, Christopher LiVolsi’s interest in Malibu Detox was held by his other company, Fennaside, LLC, which also received his management fees.
Such arrangements make it difficult for consumers, and even regulators, to track who is ultimately responsible for the harm being caused. By spreading operations across multiple corporate entities, it becomes easier to shield assets and deflect legal liability, ensuring that even if one part of the enterprise is challenged, the architects of the scheme remain protected.
The System Is Working as Intended
It is tempting to view this case as an aberration, a story of a few bad actors exploiting a system designed to help people. A deeper analysis, however, suggests this is not a system that failed. This is a system that worked precisely as designed under the logic of neoliberal capitalism, where healthcare is treated as a commodity and patients are viewed as revenue streams.
When profit maximization is the primary goal of a healthcare enterprise, the most profitable patient is not necessarily the one who gets the best care, but the one with the best insurance. In this environment, a scheme to intercept and divert these “high-value” patients is a predictable, even logical, business strategy. The tools of modern capitalism—sophisticated digital advertising, data analytics, and high-pressure sales models—were not misused. They were applied with ruthless efficiency to a market ripe for exploitation.
The evil corporations here mastered this completely immoral economic system! They identified a vulnerable population, leveraged modern technology to reach them at their point of crisis, and built a conversion funnel that prioritized financial extraction over human well-being. This case is a chilling illustration of what happens when the logic of the market is applied without restraint to the practice of medicine.
Conclusion: The Human Cost of Corporate Greed
The legal battle initiated by the Federal Trade Commission is a reckoning with a business model that allegedly turned human desperation into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
The story is one of calculated deception targeting people at their most vulnerable, all under the guise of providing help. It highlights the profound failure of a system that allows corporations to operate with such blatant disregard for public health and basic ethical standards.
The human cost is immeasurable, represented by every individual who was denied the right to choose their own path to recovery, every family that had their trust shattered, and every moment of potential healing that was lost to a manipulative sales pitch.
This case serves as a crucial reminder that without robust oversight, stringent regulation, and genuine corporate accountability, the most vulnerable among us will always be at risk from those who see crisis not as a call for compassion, but as a market opportunity.
Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?
The lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission appears to be exceptionally serious. The legal complaint is built on a foundation of detailed evidence, including call recordings, internal performance reports, financial records, and examples of the deceptive advertisements themselves.
The specificity of the allegations—down to direct quotes from call center agents and their managers—suggests a thorough and deep investigation.
Given the scale of the operation, the millions of dollars involved, and the direct harm posed to a protected and vulnerable population, this lawsuit represents a significant legal and ethical grievance.
It challenges a complex web of corporate entities and individuals for engaging in practices that violate multiple federal laws, including the FTC Act and the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act. This is a substantive action aimed at halting predatory corporate behavior and protecting the public.
The FTC has a press release about this scandal with Mercury Detox and Malibu marketing on their website: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/06/ftc-sues-stop-mercury-marketing-others-deceptively-advertising-substance-use-disorder-treatment
Malibu Detox has since shuttered its doors (while not admitting to having done any harms to anybody) but Aliya Health Group remains!
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NOTE:
This website is facing massive amounts of headwind trying to procure the lawsuits relating to corporate misconduct. We are being pimp-slapped by a quadruple whammy:
- The Trump regime's reversal of the laws & regulations meant to protect us is making it so victims are no longer filing lawsuits for shit which was previously illegal.
- Donald Trump's defunding of regulatory agencies led to the frequency of enforcement actions severely decreasing. What's more, the quality of the enforcement actions has also plummeted.
- The GOP's insistence on cutting the healthcare funding for millions of Americans in order to give their billionaire donors additional tax cuts has recently shut the government down. This government shut down has also impacted the aforementioned defunded agencies capabilities to crack down on evil-doers. Donald Trump has since threatened to make these agency shutdowns permanent on account of them being "democrat agencies".
- My access to the LexisNexis legal research platform got revoked. This isn't related to Trump or anything, but it still hurt as I'm being forced to scrounge around public sources to find legal documents now. Sadge.
All four of these factors are severely limiting my ability to access stories of corporate misconduct.
Due to this, I have temporarily decreased the amount of articles published everyday from 5 down to 3, and I will also be publishing articles from previous years as I was fortunate enough to download a butt load of EPA documents back in 2022 and 2023 to make YouTube videos with.... This also means that you'll be seeing many more environmental violation stories going forward :3
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Aleeia (owner and publisher of www.evilcorporations.com)
Also, can we talk about how ICE has a $170 billion annual budget, while the EPA-- which protects the air we breathe and water we drink-- barely clocks $4 billion? Just something to think about....
