False advertising
Another way to hide fees is to exclude shipping costs when listing the price of goods online, making an item look less expensive than it actually is.
[9] A number of hotels charge resort fees, which are not typically included in the advertised price of a room.
[10] Non-meat fillers may be high in carbohydrates and low in nutritional value; one example is a cereal binder, which usually contains flour and oatmeal.
[13] The labels "diet," "low fat," "sugar-free," "healthy" and "good for you" are often associated with products which claim to improve health.
Advertisers, aware of consumer desire to live healthier and longer, describe their products accordingly.
[16] Dannon's Activia yogurt was advertised as scientifically proven to boost the immune system, and was sold at a much higher price.
[17] Food companies may end up in court for using misleading tactics such as:[18] Many US advertisements for dietary supplements include the disclaimer, "This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease",[22] since products intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease must undergo FDA testing and approval.
[26] Puffing (or puffery) is exaggerating a product's worth with meaningless or unsubstantiated terms, language based on opinion rather than fact,[27] or the manipulation of data.
"[29] Puffing is not an illegal form of false advertising, and may be seen as a humorous way to attract consumer attention.
In an inconsistent comparison, an item is compared with others only in terms of favorable attributes; this conveys the false impression that it is the best of all products overall.
Video-game commercials may include what are essentially short CGI films, with considerably better graphics than the actual game.
When combined with added sugar or corn syrup, bright colors convey a subconscious impression of healthy, ripe fruit, full of antioxidants and phytochemicals.
A cereal may claim that it contains "12 essential vitamins and minerals," but the amounts of each may be only one percent (or less) of the Reference Daily Intake and provide virtually no nutritional benefit.
Because everything on Earth is made up of chemicals except for a few elementary particles formed by radioactive decay or present in minute quantities from solar wind and sunlight, a chemical-free product is impossible.
[41] Businesses can avoid charges of misleading or deceptive conduct by following a few guidelines: In some countries, such as Australia, bait advertising can have severe legal penalties.
A typical remedy is ordering an advertiser to stop its illegal acts, or to include disclosure of additional information which eliminates potentially-deceptive material.
"[55] In the Chimienti v. Wendy's Int'l, LLC[56] Case the plaintiff failed to demonstrate that he suffered injury and did not sufficiently allege that the advertisements were materially misleading, so the claims were dismissed under the New York General Business Law.
"[57] In 1905, Samuel Hopkins Adams released a series of articles detailing misleading claims by the patent medicine industry.
The public outcry resulting from the articles led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration the following year.
[59] The court reviewed three false-advertising cases in 2013 and 2014: Static Control v. Lexmark (concerning who may sue under the Lanham Act), ONY, Inc. v. Cornerstone Therapeutics, Inc.[60] and POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.[further explanation needed] State governments have a number of unfair-competition laws which regulate false advertising, trademarks, and related issues.
[64] The UCL "borrows heavily from section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act", and has developed a body of case law.
[65] Civil penalties may range from thousands to millions of dollars, and advertisers are sometimes ordered to provide all customers who purchased the product with a partial (or full) refund.
Each case is analyzed individually, allowing the authority to promote compliance with its enforcement policies, priorities, and available resources.
[69] Each state and territory has its own consumer-protection or consumer-affairs agency:[69] The ACCC is designed to assist consumers, businesses, industries, and infrastructure nationwide.
[69] There are many similarities in the laws and regulation between the Australian ACCC, New Zealand's FTA, the U.S. FTC, and the United Kingdom's CPR.
The goals of these policies are to support fair trade and competition and to reduce deceptive and false practices in advertising.
[78][79] The act prohibits certain conduct in trade, provides for the disclosure of information available to the consumer relating to the supply of goods and services, and regulates product safety.
[81][80] The act also applies to certain activities whether or not the parties are "in trade," such as employment advertising, pyramid selling, and supplying products covered by product-safety and consumer-information standards.
