Lamps Plus to pay $4.1M to resolve false advertising suit from CA prosecutors

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Lamps Plus has agreed to pay $4.1 million to resolve allegations that it featured misleading advertising regarding its sales prices and price protection policy, it was announced Wednesday,

The company is accused of engaging in false advertising and unfair competition in a complaint filed by the District Attorney's offices of San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties.

Prosecutors said the store's advertisements failed to disclose that its price match and 120% price match guarantees did not cover Lamps Plus own-brand products, and that the advertisements didn't note a number of other exclusions to the price protection policy.

Other ads for items apparently on sale were also misleading, according to the complaint. Some prices would feature strikethroughs to falsely indicate how much the items' prices had been reduced, while other items bore "Compare at" or "Comparable Value" sales tags despite there being no similar competing product, according to prosecutors.

As part of the judgment reached in court, Lamps Plus will pay $3.8 million in civil penalties, plus $300,000 to cover the prosecutors' investigatory costs and fund other consumer protection enforcement efforts. Lamps Plus will also be prohibited from advertisements featuring prices or its price protection policy in ways that are false or misleading.

The judgment was reached without Lamps Plus admitting any liability or wrongdoing.

"Civil actions like this one protect the consumer and hold corporations accountable when they fail to follow the laws in place to ensure the public is getting accurate and fair pricing information on products they purchase," San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a statement. "By joining forces with other District Attorney Offices in the state, our combined efforts are protecting Californians up and down the state."

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