There is a very specific genre of sales pitch that never seems to die. It usually starts with freedom, laptops, and the suggestion that your current income situation is a personal failure you can fix by buying the right secret. Then comes the upsell.

According to the FTC, Coaching Department and Apply Knowledge sold that exact fantasy. The agency says the defendants falsely told people they could earn thousands of dollars a month by purchasing business coaching services and setting up an internet business. Years later, refund checks are still going out.

What happened with Coaching Department?

The FTC says this was a business coaching scheme that conned millions of dollars from consumers. The pitch was not subtle: buy the coaching, follow the system, and watch the money roll in. The actual result, according to the refund page, was a long series of consumer losses large enough to produce multiple rounds of refunds.

The FTC first sent checks in October 2019, then additional rounds in June 2020, December 2021, and March 2023. Those distributions returned more than $28.9 million to affected consumers. Because money still remained in the fund, the FTC said in September 2025 that it was mailing an additional 7,943 checks totaling over $252,000 to people who cashed a previous check.

The 90-day deadline is real. If you get one of these checks, the FTC says to cash it within 90 days. A surprising number of refund programs end with people forgetting the envelope on a counter and accidentally donating their own money back to inertia.

The bigger reality check: why these coaching pitches keep working

These schemes tend to sell three things at once: hope, urgency, and the idea that ordinary caution is what separates you from wealth. If you hesitate, you are “thinking small.” If the numbers sound impossible, that just means you have not adopted the mindset yet. It is a sales script wearing a motivational hoodie.

The promise here, per the FTC, was that people could earn thousands of dollars a month by paying for coaching and launching an online business. That is exactly the kind of broad income claim that sounds exciting in a webinar and gets much less charming once your credit card statement arrives.

Common red flags in “make money online” coaching offers

Coaching Department is one case, not the whole internet. But the pattern is familiar. If a program sounds like this, slow down:

  • Huge income claims with fuzzy details. “Thousands a month” sounds impressive. It is also conveniently vague. Ask how, from what business model, under what timeline, and with what real costs.
  • The business is always just one more purchase away. Intro course. Premium coaching. Done-for-you setup. Elite mastermind. Somehow the easy money keeps requiring another invoice.
  • Success stories do all the heavy lifting. If the sales pitch leans harder on testimonials than on verifiable numbers, that is not proof. That is atmosphere.
  • Pressure to act fast. Real education does not usually expire at midnight unless the timer is taped to the page with JavaScript and vibes.
  • No plain explanation of risk. Any real business has costs, failure rates, and tradeoffs. If the downside is barely mentioned, the sales team already knows it is ugly.

What should readers actually do with this?

If you got a refund check tied to Coaching Department, cash it. That part is easy. The harder but more useful lesson is what to do before paying the next “coach” who promises easy internet income.

  1. Ask what the business actually is. Not the dream. The mechanics.
  2. Ask for total cost, not starter cost. A cheap front-end offer can hide a very expensive ladder.
  3. Look for independently verifiable outcomes. Not screenshots. Not hype reels. Real, specific evidence.
  4. Check for refund policies in plain English. If cancellation terms read like a hostage note from Legal, walk away.
  5. Search the company and founder with words like complaint, FTC, refund, lawsuit, and scam. Five minutes of searching can save months of regret.
Simple rule: if a money-making program spends more time selling the fantasy of being rich than explaining the work, it is probably selling the fantasy on purpose.

The bottom line

The latest Coaching Department checks are real. Cash them if you get one. But the longer shelf-life lesson is this: “earn thousands a month” coaching programs often rely on the same old formula of inflated promises, expensive guidance, and conveniently blurry details.

The dream is polished. The math usually is not. And when the FTC has to keep mailing refund rounds years later, that is not exactly a glowing Yelp review.

Source: This article is based on the FTC's official refund page for Coaching Department. Primary source: ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/coaching-department-refunds. Refund administrator phone: 1-844-982-1005.