Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Torrid Posts False Sale Prices Online [UPDATE]

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Torrid faces a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the fashion retailer has misled shoppers by posting false sale prices on its website, leading consumers to mistakenly believe they’re getting a deal.

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The 42-page lawsuit claims that the Torrid, Torrid Curve, CURV and Lovesick clothing at issue has been advertised with “false, misleading, and inflated comparison reference prices,” which serve to deceive consumers into believing that the stated sale price on Torrid.com is a discounted bargain price. Per the case, Torrid’s purportedly limited-time sitewide or nearly sitewide sales are misleading in that they never expire.

“[W]hen one sale expires, another similar sale is promptly instituted, or the sale never ends,” the lawsuit reads. “This cycle continues over and over.”

At the end of the day, Torrid’s online “sales” practices deceive consumers into spending money they otherwise would not have spent, the case argues. 

The truth, the suit claims, is that the purported strike-through discounts on Torrid’s site are not representative of any former “regular price” at which a product was offered for any period of time because a given item “has not been listed for sale or sold on the website, in the recent past and for a substantial time,” at that purported regular price.

“Anyone visiting the website who buys an item on ‘sale’ from a stricken former or regular price is being misled,” the class action lawsuit alleges. “So too is anyone who buys an item on sale using an automatically or manually applied coupon code.”

According to the complaint, all, or nearly all, of the reference prices on Torrid.com are false and misleading, as they are simply “inflated prices posted to lure consumers into purchasing items.” Beyond that, the filing says, Torrid’s products sold online have both a lower market value than what consumers are led to believe and a lower value than the posted discounted “sale” price.

Ultimately, Torrid’s use of false reference prices online artificially drives up demand for its products, “and by extension drives up the price of the products,” the case contends.

“To illustrate, assume a company knows a product will sell in the marketplace at $30. But to increase revenue and capture market share, the company advertises the product as having a regular price of $100 and being on ‘sale’ at 60% off (i.e., $60 off). Because consumers value products based on the regular price, and a purported limited-time sale conveys savings, the company can sell that $30 product for $40.”

The filing says that Torrid’s apparent false reference pricing practice is not a new or isolated tactic but has continued regularly since at least 2020 and probably earlier.

The Torrid class action lawsuit looks to cover all persons nationwide who bought one or more items from Torrid.com during the applicable statute of limitations period at a discount from a higher reference price.

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