false-advertising

Sony Rewards Item Not Such A Great Deal Once You Actually Want To Buy It
By Laura Northrup on November 4, 2011 9:30 AM  
Jonathan has a Sony Rewards credit card with Capital One, and tried to use his accumulated points to buy an AV receiver, Sony's "deal of the week," from the rewards site. There's a special price this week for members, only 24,000 points. Great! Jonathan has that many points! Only the site won't let him (or anyone) buy the item for the advertised sale price. More Â»

Amex Settles Case Alleging They Advertised BOGO, But Charged Double
By Ben Popken on May 23, 2011 11:45 AM  
How's this for a bad deal? American Express Publishing Corp. had an offer for a "free" airline ticket when you bought a companion ticket and a subscription to Skyguide magazine. But a lawsuit brought by five Californian counties says that when consumers went to the website to buy their ticket, they were often charged double what the ticket would have cost them if they bought the ticket straight from the airline. Get it? More Â»

Simple Mobile Unlimited Data Plan Is Of Course Secretly Limited
By Chris Walters on July 26, 2010 12:30 PM  
Simple Mobile, a reseller of T-Mobile cellphone service, offers a $60 "unlimited everything" plan that includes unlimited data. To no one's surprise, there is a hard cap on the unlimited data according to Howard Forums and our tipster Eric. Naturally you can't find that limit anywhere on their website, and if you exceed it you're asked to pay $10 for an additional 100 MB of data. More Â»

Vitaminwater Isn't Healthy, Rules Federal Judge
By Carey Alexander on July 24, 2010 8:00 AM  
A federal judge ruled this week that Vitaminwater will not, as its labels promise, keep you "healthy as a horse." Nor will it bring about a "healthy state of physical or mental being". Instead, Vitaminwater is really just a sugary snack food; non-carbonated fruit coke disguised as a sports drink. Because it's composed mostly of sugar and not vitamin-laden water, judge John Gleeson held that Vitaminwater's absurd marketing claims were likely to mislead consumers. More Â»

Man Says Yoo-hoo's 'Good For You' Promise Is False Advertising
By Chris Walters on July 6, 2010 8:02 AM  
A Brooklyn man is suing the makers of Yoo-hoo, the weird chocolate-flavored drink that's been around for 90 years, over their claims that the drink is as healthy as it is delicious. Although actually, if the company would change its description to "as healthy as it is delicious," they'd probably be able to avoid all lawsuits: "Look, we told you it wasn't healthy." More Â»

Vivitar Sells Camera With Imaginary Optical Zoom, Hopes No One Notices
By Laura Northrup on April 14, 2010 11:00 AM  
When shopping for a digital camera, it's good to carefully weigh your photography needs, the amount you wish to spend, and the specifications of different cameras. Unfortunately, doing so requires that the advertised specifications for a camera be accurate. That's what the UK-based site DigicamReview and several reviews on Amazon say that Vivitar sort of forgot to do with their Vivicam 8225. While the inexpensive camera advertises a 2X optical zoom, advanced users claim that there's no optical zoom at all. More Â»

Group Critical Of Baby Einstein DVDs Gets Evicted, Blames Disney
By Chris Walters on March 15, 2010 1:33 PM  
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) was the group responsible for pressuring Disney into offering refunds on Baby Einstein DVDs last October. Now the CCFC says Disney threatened the mental health center where the group had offices, and consequently the center booted them out in January. More Â»

Virgin Mobile Isn't Quite Clear On The Meaning Of "Playlist"
By Laura Northrup on February 28, 2010 10:00 AM  
Jennifer writes that she bought a new phone, a Samsung Mantra, based on the features listed for the phone on Virgin Mobile's web site. The problem is that the phone doesn't actually seem to have the advertised features that led her to buy the phone in the first place. More Â»

Watch Baseball With No Blackouts - Blackout Restrictions May Apply
By Laura Northrup on February 26, 2010 4:30 PM  
Andrew sent us this perplexing banner from MLB.tv. He saw it on the Atlanta Braves' web site. "NO BLACKOUTS!" it proclaims. Then at the bottom: "Blackout and other restrictions apply." Well, at least the banner ad is honest.
Hilton Complimentary Internet Access In Lobby Costs $10 A Day
By Chris Walters on November 2, 2009 11:09 PM  

—>At Hilton Washington Dulles Airport hotel, everything is complimentary! That's because to them "complimentary" actually means "for a price." Last week, a linguistics professor tried to take advantage of their "Complimentary High-speed Internet access on the lobby level," which is how they describe the service on their website. He quickly discovered that he'd have to agree to a $9.99 charge in order to get the free service.  More Â»

Florida AG Sues TigerDirect For 'Continually Blaming Customers' For Rebate Delays
By consumerist.com on September 8, 2009 7:05 PM  

—>Waiting for a rebate from TigerDirect? Good luck with that. In a suit filed last Friday, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is charging the company with, among other things, promising customers that rebates would arrive in about 8-10 weeks of submission, when in fact "a vast number of customers experienced delays ranging from one to more than eight months, before receiving their promised rebates, if at all." The suit also charges TigerDirect with engaging in "deceptive and unfair trade practices."  More Â»

$500,000 In Consumer Refunds From Rite Aid After False Cold Remedy Advertising Suit
By Laura Northrup on July 14, 2009 11:41 PM  

—>Remember the class-action lawsuit against the makers of cold-and-flu-preventing magic potion Airborne? Airborne claimed that it could prevent or shorten colds and flus, without any actual scientific evidence to back those claims up.  More Â»

Ignored Gamer Puts The Smackdown On Mixed-Up Game Publisher
By Phil Villarreal on June 26, 2009 3:28 PM  

—>When we last spoke to Jess, the gamer with the questionable taste for dolphin pet-simulating video games, she was adrift in a sea of despair, having bought a game based on promotional copy on the game's site and box, only to find the game she bought was different than that which was promised. Publisher 505 Games seemed to be blowing her off.  More Â»

Game Publisher Square Enix Slapped With Class Action Suit For False Advertising, 'Product Enrichment'
By Phil Villarreal on June 25, 2009 4:16 PM  

—>One day, gamers will get together to sue Square Enix for always lying to them about how infinitely sequelized "Final" Fantasy games are never really final. But until then we'll just have to sit back and see how this false advertising federal class action lawsuit against the game publisher plays out.  More Â»

Florida Albertsons Coughs Up Green For False Advertising
By Phil Villarreal on June 15, 2009 2:44 PM  

—>One effective way to draw customers into your grocery store then piss them off is to put out an ad with good deals, then refuse to honor them.  More Â»

Gamer Tricked Into Buying Lame DS Dolphin Title By Erroneous Ad, Publisher Dragging Its Fins
By Phil Villarreal on May 29, 2009 3:20 AM  

—>All Jess wanted was a Nintendogs-style DS game that would let her frolic with an imaginary pet dolphin, teach it a few tricks and perform routines in front of an adoring virtual crowd. Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery seemed to fit the bill because its site, as well as the box it comes in, says the game lets you do just that.  More Â»

Customers Sue Clearwire For Rotten Service, Early Termination Fees
By Chris Walters on April 23, 2009 5:47 PM  

—>Customers from Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota and North Carolina have teamed up to file a lawsuit against Clearwire for misrepresenting the quality of its hit-or-miss wireless network, and then charging ETFs for account cancellations even when there's no service as promised. If they win, Clearwire will be banned "from enforcing the Early Termination Fees and from further false advertising."   More Â»

Coke Sued Over VitaminWater Claims
By Chris Walters on January 15, 2009 4:40 PM  

—>The Center for Science in the Public Interest has announced a class-action lawsuit against Coca-Cola over its VitaminWater line, on the grounds that it makes deceptive claims about the nutritional benefits of its drinks.   More Â»

Classmates.com Sued Because Classmates Weren't Really Looking For Him
By Ben Popken on November 13, 2008 3:28 PM  
Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts … Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile," the complaint reads. "Of those www.classmates.com users who were characterized ... as members who viewed Plaintiff's profile, none were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter.  More Â»

Best Buy Cancels Your Order As You Stand There Shouting "Stop!"
By Carey Alexander on September 22, 2008 12:00 AM  

—>Best Buy didn't want to honor the sale price of the 2GB flash drive Matt ordered through their website, so when Matt arrived to pick-up his purchase, the store's assistant manager called customer service and, pretending to be Matt, asked to cancel the order. Let's read Matt's story and see how it violates Massachusetts law, inside...  More Â»

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