The Enagic TCPA Settlement: What Happened, What It Cost, and What Changed

In January 2020, a federal court in California gave final approval to a $27.6 million class action settlement against Enagic USA. The case had been filed in 2015. It involved 1.8 million people who received $12 each. Almost no one in the Enagic distributor community talks about it, but this article documents what happened, what Enagic agreed to change, and what it means if you're evaluating the business today.

What Is the TCPA?

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is a US federal law passed in 1991 that restricts how businesses and their agents can contact consumers by phone. The key restrictions relevant to this case:

• Autodialers: using automatic telephone dialling systems to call or text mobile numbers without the recipient's prior express written consent is prohibited
• Pre-recorded calls: sending pre-recorded voice messages to numbers without consent is prohibited
• Penalties: $500 per violation, trebled to $1,500 per wilful violation—which is why class actions under the TCPA produce large settlement numbers quickly

The TCPA applies not just to the company making the calls but to anyone acting on that company's behalf, including independent distributors. This is the vicarious liability principle that made Enagic legally exposed for what its distributors did.

What Was Alleged

The case is formally titled Makaron v. Enagic USA, Inc., Case No. 2:15-cv-05145-DDP-E, filed in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California on July 8, 2015.

Lead plaintiff Edward Makaron alleged that Enagic distributors were using autodialers and pre-recorded calls to market Enagic products to consumers who had never consented to receive them. The distributor conduct in question included mass text message campaigns and robocall outreach to cold audiences; people who had no prior relationship with Enagic or the distributors contacting them.

The critical legal question was not whether Enagic itself made the calls. It didn't. The question was whether Enagic was vicariously liable for what its independent distributors did—specifically, whether Enagic had failed to adequately monitor, direct, or control how its distributors obtained leads and consent.

The court ruled that this question was sufficient to proceed as a class action. The class was defined as approximately 1.8 million U.S. residents who received at least one call from an Enagic distributor between July 8, 2011 and March 13, 2018.

The Timeline

July 8, 2015—Complaint filed by Edward Makaron in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California

2015–2019—Discovery, class certification proceedings, and litigation

July 2019—Preliminary settlement approval granted by Judge Dean D. Pregerson

August 6, 2019—Court-authorised settlement notice issued (PR Newswire)

January 15, 2020—Final settlement approval granted

What Enagic Agreed To

The settlement had two components:

The monetary component—$21.6 million

Approximately 1.8 million class members were eligible to receive $12 each upon submitting a valid and timely claim. The total monetary component was approximately $21.6 million.

The injunctive component—$6 million

This is the most significant part for anyone evaluating the Enagic business today. The $6 million injunction required Enagic to make structural changes to how it operates:

• Revised Policies and Procedures explicitly prohibiting independent distributors from using automated telephone dialling systems to market Enagic products
• A compliance training programme—mandatory training for distributors on TCPA requirements and the revised P&P
• Revised enforcement protocols with distributors—new mechanisms for monitoring and responding to distributor conduct violations
• Two years of compliance oversight auditing by class counsel, including bi-annual status reports on Enagic's compliance with the injunction terms

Enagic's position: Enagic denied all allegations and settled to avoid the further risk and cost of ongoing litigation. No admission of wrongdoing.

Primary source: Case docket on CourtListener—Case No. 2:15-cv-05145-DDP-E, U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

What This Actually Means

For the historical record

This is the largest financial outcome in Enagic's regulatory history. It predates the FTC actions (2021) and the DSSRC cases (2021, 2025) and establishes a pattern: distributor conduct creating legal exposure for the company.

The conduct at the centre of the case—mass robocalling and texting cold audiences—is exactly the kind of outreach that generates fast-growing downlines and also gets people sued. It's not unique to Enagic. TCPA class actions have been filed against companies across almost every industry. But the scale here—1.8 million class members—reflects that this was happening at significant volume within the Enagic distributor network.

For Enagic's compliance evolution

The $6 million injunction is not just a fine. It's a structural compliance mechanism. The revised P&P, mandatory distributor training, and two years of court-supervised auditing represent genuine accountability. Enagic was required to change how it operates, not just pay a settlement figure.

Whether those changes were sufficient is a separate question. The DSSRC continued to document income claim violations in 2021 and again in 2025, which suggests compliance culture is still a work in progress. But the TCPA injunction was a specific, documented structural response to a specific, documented problem.

For Enagic distributors building today

The conduct that triggered this lawsuit is straightforwardly illegal and straightforwardly bad practice. Mass robocalling cold audiences is not how sustainable Enagic businesses are built. The distributors responsible were trading short-term lead volume for long-term legal exposure—and exposing Enagic to the same.

If you are building an Enagic business:

• Do not use autodialers, mass texting platforms, or pre-recorded calls to market to cold audiences
• Do not purchase contact lists and blast them with Enagic marketing
• Obtain explicit, documented consent before any outreach. This is both a TCPA requirement and basic ethical practice
• Read the current Enagic P&P on telemarketing. The revised version resulting from this settlement is specific about what is and isn't permitted

The distributors who built the right way, creating direct relationships, having genuine product conversations, and sharing transparent income expectations, were not the ones whose conduct created 1.8 million class members. That distinction matters.

A Note from Aimee

This lawsuit was the direct consequence of a distributor culture that prioritises fast growth over honest practice. The same culture that produced 1.8 million unwanted robocalls also produced $300K income screenshots that the DSSRC flagged in 2025 and the COVID-19 health claims the FTC addressed in 2021. Different tactics with the same underlying dynamic: income pressure without compliance discipline.

This site exists because that culture is real and because it has consequences: for the people on the receiving end of the calls, for the people who joined based on income claims that bore no relationship to the disclosed median, and for Enagic itself, which paid $27.6 million for what its distributors did.

That's exactly why the income data on this site comes before the opportunity, not after it.

Primary Sources

• Makaron v. Enagic USA—Case docket, CourtListener—Case No. 2:15-cv-05145-DDP-E
• Court-authorised settlement notice, PR Newswire—August 6, 2019
• Enagic USA Earnings Disclosure Statement 2024
• FTC guidance on TCPA compliance

Aimee Devlin is an Enagic Independent Distributor (ID 1916898) based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This article documents publicly available court records and is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice.