Lens.com Lawsuit Claims Deceptively Low Prices Don’t Reveal Hefty Hidden Fee

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A proposed class action alleges Lens.com draws customers in by advertising “deceptively” low prices for contact lenses only to charge a hidden fee that “dramatically” increases the total cost of their order.

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The 19-page case claims that this hidden “Taxes & Fees” charge, which the online contact lens retailer is alleged to secretly add at the end of the order process, makes customers’ net total at least 30 to 50 percent more expensive than the price originally advertises.

“This amount greatly exceeds any reasonable tax owed on the purchase, and [the defendant] makes no effort to explain what taxes or fees are covered by this line item,” the complaint says, claiming that Lens.com “does everything it can” to conceal the extra charge from consumers.

In reality, the “Taxes & Fees” charge is actually a “processing fee” that is only disclosed if a full receipt is requested and provided by a customer service representative, the filing contends. What’s more, these fees are made-up charges that are “totally unrelated” to the actual operation costs associated with processing orders, and are instead “purely profit generators,” the suit alleges.

“And when these fees are factored in, the total cost of buying contacts from [the defendant] is essentially the same as the total cost of buying contact lenses from [the defendant’s] more honest competitors,” the case argues.

The plaintiff, an Illinois resident, says she placed an order on Lens.com in September 2022 for four boxes of contacts and three boxes of solution. The woman’s receipt says her total was $310.07, but her credit card was charged $416.04 for the order, the case contends.

The plaintiff’s receipt included instructions in small font to click a link to see “complete order details,” which revealed that she was charged a subtotal of $406.09, plus a $9.95 shipping charge, the filing relays. However, the items on the receipt only total $313.08 when added together with shipping, the complaint says.

“[The plaintiff], as a reasonable consumer, and the putative class members believed the subtotal was the addition of multiple items purchased,” the case says. “Instead, there was a taxes and fees charge of $102.96 hidden in the ‘subtotal’ and not a line item like the shipping charge.”

According to the suit, the woman’s flexible spending account card issuer denied the $416.04 charge because the receipt showed that the items cost only $313.08 plus shipping. After the plaintiff contacted a Lens.com agent to work out the discrepancy, she was sent a “full receipt” that, for the first time, contained a line item for a $102.96 “processing” fee, the lawsuit shares.

The plaintiff claims that she and “perhaps millions” of other customers nationwide have been deceived into making purchases they would not have otherwise made had they not been enticed by Lens.com’s misleadingly low prices.

The lawsuit looks to represent any Illinois residents who, during the applicable statute of limitations period, purchased products from Lens.com and were assessed and paid a processing fee.

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