Class Action Claims Talbots Advertises False Prices, Fake Sales Online

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Talbots advertises on its website false discounts by way of misleading strikethrough price comparisons and inflated original, purportedly non-discounted prices.  

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The 61-page class action lawsuit alleges that although Talbots advertises products on its website with a supposedly original strikethrough price and a corresponding “sale” price, the purported “original” prices are, in fact, artificially inflated to mislead consumers into believing they are purchasing an item at a substantial discount. The case contends that products listed on the Talbots website are never offered at the purported full price, and the discounts on items apparently on sale for a limited time are “routinely available.”

According to the complaint, an investigation by the plaintiff’s counsel using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine revealed that Talbots offers site-wide sales “most of the time.” When it doesn’t, the retailer still offers sale prices on a large percentage of its products with flash sales and product-specific discounts, the case says.

“For its markdown products, the supposed former prices [Talbots] advertise [sic] are false and misleading, because those products did not actually regularly sell at those prices before they were marked down, and instead were routinely discounted,” the filing summarizes.

As the suit tells it, everything about Talbots’ price and purported discount advertising is false.

Reasonable consumers look at the strikethrough sale price comparisons and are led to believe they are getting a substantial discount, the suit alleges. However, the lawsuit contends that the supposed original product prices listed on the Talbots website are not actually the regular prices because “[Talbots] products are consistently available for less than that,” the suit says.

According to the filing, Talbots’ actions violate Federal Trade Commission guidelines, which prohibit false price comparisons of “an artificial, inflated price…for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction.”

More specifically, Talbots' deceptive pricing scheme tricks consumers into believing a product is heavily discounted and coerces them into making purchases they may not have otherwise made, the complaint contends. According to the complaint, about two-thirds of consumers admit that “a promotion of a coupon often closes the deal, if they are wavering or undecided on making a purchase.”

Talbot harms consumers by “inducing them to make purchases based on false information,” the class action lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs purchased items from Talbots with the belief that the products were listed at their true original product prices and were being offered at a significant discount, the filing explains. Per the suit, the plaintiffs reasonably relied on Talbots’ representations that the advertised discount was legitimate and not consistently available.

The Talbots class action lawsuit seeks to cover any individuals who, while in California and within the applicable statute of limitations period, purchased one or more Talbots products advertised at a discount or markdown.

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