Fashion Nova has been fined by the FTC or the Federal Trade Commission of the United States to settle a complaint that alleges the fast-fashion brand of hiding or blocking bad reviews from its website.
BERLIN, GERMANY - JANUARY 25: In this photo illustration a young man types on an illuminated computer keyboard typically favored by computer coders on January 25, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. 2020 saw a sharp rise in global cybercrime that was in part driven by the jump in online retailing that ensued during national lockdowns as governments sought to rein in the coronavirus pandemic.
Fashion Nova Fined by FTC
The US FTC is now requiring the California fast-fashion firm to pay a whopping $4.2 million for suppressing any negative reviews against its products on its own website, as per a news story by The Verge.
The FTC said that the case against Fashion Nova is the first instance that a retailer is paying a fine for blocking bad reviews.
The press release of the agency said that Fashion Nova used a third-party tool from 2015 up until 2019, which only allowed both four stars and five stars review ratings to be posted.
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 09: Cardi B performs onstage as Fashion Nova Presents: Party With Cardi at Hollywood Palladium on May 9, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Meanwhile, product reviews going below four stars were blocked, which according to the FTC, misled the customers of the fashion retailer.
FTC vs. Negative Reviews Blocking
The American agency further stated that "suppressing a product's negative reviews deprives consumers of potentially useful information and artificially inflates the product's average star rating.
On top of that, the director of the bureau of consumer protection at the FTC, Samuel Lavine, also said in a statement that filtering product reviews in such a way not only cheats its customers, but it also "pollutes online commerce."
That's not all, the FTC also reached out to a total of 10 review management firms to remind them that concealing bad product reviews is a violation of the FTC Act.
It just goes to show that the complaint against Fashion Nova is also a warning to other firms that only keep positive and rating reviews.
According to a report by Business of Fashion, aside from the fine imposed against Fashion Nova, the FTC also requires the retailer to post all of the reviews of its products even if it is negative.
However, the agency puts an exemption to explicit or any unlawful content on reviews.
Fashion Nova's Response
On the flip side, Fashion Nova said in a statement that the allegations of the US agency are both "deceptive" and "inaccurate," noting that the issue has already been fixed once it was notified about it.
What's more, the fast-fashion retailer also said that it is "highly confident" that they would have won if there was any litigation.
However, the firm claimed that it opted to settle the case and pay for the fine as the legal fees would have been more expensive.
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Written by Teejay Boris
