[{"url":"https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2014/10/first-ftc-rosca-case-challenges-bogus-bogo-free-claims","source":"FTC USA Business Blog Posts","description":"First FTC ROSCA case challenges bogus BOGO and \"free\" claims wfg-adm109 October 21, 2014 | 12:02PM First FTC ROSCA case challenges bogus BOGO and \"free\" claims By Lesley Fair It’s called ROSCA – the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act – and it prohibits marketers from charging consumers for an online transaction unless the marketer has clearly disclosed all material terms of the deal and received the consumer’s express informed consent. Your e-commerce clients will want to know about the FTC’s first ROSCA case , filed recently in Nevada. According to the lawsuit, Health Formulas, LLC and a tangle of related California- and Nevada-based companies and individuals – consumers may know them as Simple Pure Nutrition – pitched a variety of products for weight loss, muscle building, virility, and skin care. The defendants advertised diet supplements like Pure Green Coffee Bean Plus and RKG Extreme as a shortcut to drop the pounds: “Burn fat without diet or exercise,” “Extreme weight loss!” “Shed pounds fast!” “Super concentrated double fat burning,” etc. Among the defendants’ more colorful business names: Weight Loss Dojo, Longhorn Marketing (sorry, Texas fans), Black Bull, and Unleash the Thunder. But unsubstantiated weight loss claims were just the start. The FTC says the defendants lured people in with bogus promises of a “free” trial or deceptive buy-one-get-one (BOGO) offers. Then they tricked consumers into giving their credit or debit card information with the false implication that consumers had to “just pay shipping.” Digits in hand, the defendants really went to town, allegedly signing consumers up without their authorization for a negative option program that billed their accounts over and over again, to the monthly tune of between $60 and $210. The FTC says the defendants violated ROSCA by using a negative option feature without providing clear and conspicuous disclosures, getting the consumer’s express informed consent, and offering a simple mechanism for stopping the recurring charges. The FTC’s complaint also cites the defendants’ hard-to-find and hard-to-understand fine-print “terms and conditions,” which consumers could reach only by scrolling through the equivalent of two printed pages and clicking on an obscure hyperlink. Assuming they found it – and that’s a big if – the typical “terms and conditions” document was 10 pages long. On some websites, consumers had to scroll down the payment page to see further fine-print disclosures about the cost of the products. The first sentence reiterated what consumers generally understood (“You must pay a shipping and handling fee of $4.95 for us to send you a full 30 day supply of Garcinia Cambogia Extract”) but it wasn’t until the middle of the paragraph that the defendants mentioned that the trial period lasts only 14 days, that it began when the items were shipped (not delivered), and that consumers would be charged after that. Other websites didn’t even include that information. According to the lawsuit, consumers who attempted to take the defendants up on their money-back guarantee were met with a series of undisclosed roadblocks. In addition to the ROSCA counts, the FTC says the defendants’ practices violated the Electronic Fund Transfer Act by debiting consumers’ accounts on a recurring basis without their prior written authorization. What’s more, the complaint charges that the defendants continued to call people after being told to cut it out, in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule’s entity-specific Do Not Call provisions. The FTC says they also violated the TSR through a series of deceptive upsells. A federal judge has entered a temporary restraining order and the FTC is seeking to put a permanent stop to the defendants’ illegal practices. If your clients have ROSCA questions, the","id":3201052,"pubDate":"Wed, 07 Oct 2026 08:05:50 +0200","titre":"First FTC ROSCA case challenges bogus BOGO and \"free\" claims"},{"source":"FTC USA Business Blog Posts","url":"https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2020/07/buckle-two-lane-look-car-buying","titre":"Buckle up for a two-lane look at car buying","pubDate":"Sat, 03 Oct 2026 08:09:38 +0200","id":3194915,"description":"Buckle up for a two-lane look at car buying lfair July 30, 2020 | 1:04PM Buckle up for a two-lane look at car buying By Lesley Fair It’s one of the biggest purchases people make, but two new FTC staff reports examine some common pitfalls when consumers are in the market for a car. Buckle down and read the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Buckle Up: Navigating Auto Sales and Financing , which focuses on the challenges buyers face in getting accurate, understandable information when shopping for a vehicle. Not in the auto business? Not so fast. The deep-dive analysis of Buckle Up and an accompanying report by BCP staff and the Bureau of Economics – The Auto Buyer Study: Lessons From In-Depth Consumer Interviews And Related Research – offer insights into the perception and behavior of consumers in the study that can apply to other industries. The FTC’s interest in auto-related transactions goes back decades. (Check out Volume 1 of Federal Trade Commission Decisions for a 1919 case regarding deception in the sale of auto parts.) The FTC has brought law enforcement actions challenging illegal practices, held workshops and roundtables to hear from consumer groups and industry members, and educated buyers and sellers about their rights and responsibilities. One notable feature about the two new reports is that FTC staff went straight to the source and based their views, in part, on detailed interviews with consumers about their experiences when buying and financing a vehicle. You’ll want to read Buckle Up from bumper to bumper, but one key finding is that consumers may be unaware of key terms in sales and financing contracts. One reason may be the extent to which the negotiations process focuses primarily on the monthly payment. That approach can leave consumers in the dark about other important – sometimes even more important – financial variables like the down payment, the length of financing, the total sales price, and the annual percentage rate. So let’s say the consumer has decided on a vehicle and has come to an agreement on the price. All done? Consumers may think the checkered flag is in sight, but for the dealership, negotiations have just begun. First, as the report suggests, “price” can be an elusive concept in the context of car buying. Does it mean sticker price, out-the-door price, total sales price, or something else? Furthermore, it’s often in a last-lap meeting in the financing office that dealers raise the issue of add-ons – purchases like extended warranties, service plans, credit insurance, GAP policies, window etching, etc., that can add substantially to what consumers walking into the office thought the price was. Add-ons also may have limits or conditions and may not cover what consumers expect. The staff report suggests several reasons why add-ons were the single greatest area of confusion for consumers who participated in the study. According to the report, the talk turned to add-ons only after long hours (or days or weeks) of negotiations left consumers feeling both pressured to close the deal and confused by the details. Even the very nature of the products left many consumers bewildered. Are these add-ons mandatory? Are they free? Is the cost included in what consumers perceive as the already agreed-upon price? Does the dealership’s practice of bundling – offering add-ons as a package – mean buyers can’t pick and choose the add-ons they want? What about consumers’ opportunity to review the purchase and financing paperwork? As the report notes, “[T]he length of the auto-buying process, the amount of paperwork involved, and the technical industry jargon often coalesce to make meaningful review and engagement a challenging task.” Participants in the study cited the exhausting negotiation process, a sense of feeling rushed at the end, information overload that left some of them “overwhelmed,” and the difficulty of reviewing documents on a tablet or other"},{"description":"This paper reports on an experiment which connects document design with document theory. Document design is about what documents should do. We use the example of document graphs and of Cosma, a visualization program created during the HyperOtlet research programme, to show how theory can inform design decisions and help conceptualize results. This paper is currently under peer review.