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Williams-Sonoma fined $3.18M for falsely labeling products 'Made in USA'
- randycupertino 3y agoIt's not the first time- The Federal Trade Commission said the retailer violated a 2020 order it settled that made the same allegations. Here is the 2020 order it got in trouble over originally: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/07/ftc-approves-final-order-settling-charges-williams-sonoma-inc-made-overly-broad-misleading-made-usa https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/07/...
- hinkley 3y agoHopefully they multiply the fines by pi every time they repeat the violation. “You want to make it 10M?” in angry dad voice.
- sahila 3y agoWhat’s special about pi? That’s just a 3x multiplier, seems more appropriate it should be an exponential fine increase to strongly deter repeat fines.
- valleyer 3y agoMultiplying by pi (or any number greater than one) repeatedly is exponential increase.
- hinkley 3y agoIf you read the article this is their second offense and they settled the first for 1 million. It's just around pi, and the square root of ten is just a hair above pi. "pi" is funnier to say than "3.1 something"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- heyoni 3y agoFunny, I just reported them to the FTC for not allowing me to unsubscribe from their mailing lists despite never opting in.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y agoThis is one of the problems with current legislation (CAN SPAM). My understanding is that individuals don’t have standing to sue, but instead all they can do is report issues to the government and hope they do something about it.
- lldb 3y agoYep. And even worse states aren’t allowed to give individuals standing to sue either under the preemption clause (expect for in cases of deceptive advertising via email).
- Simulacra 3y agoThis always bugged me about Harley Davidson, because only around 70 to 80% of the parts are made in America. Most of Harley-Davidson's sold across the globe are made outside of America. Yet.. it's "Made in America" when in fact it's just assembled here. Always felt that was dishonest but IIRC they use a special loophole
- bugbuddy 3y agoThe easy fix for this is to use a nutrition style labeling for origin. Just list the origin of each part. Problem solved.
- readyman 3y agoEasy? Maybe it seems that way if you know nothing whatsoever about American politics.
- kbenson 3y agoAlmost no vehicle manufacturers make all their own parts, and vetting the source of every part to make sure also were all made in the states would just mean that some parts are unavailable. Also, its important to think of the other side of the made in the U.S.A. label which was to bring foreign manufacturers to the states for our market. Think Honda and Toyota. Getting the majority of the parts made here and the assembly here was a major benefit to those areas it affected compared to having that all happen in Japan. If you required 100% or close to it, would that have even happened? There are both positives and negatives to the current system, but in a global market I'm not sure it's sane to expect complex products with many parts to have a single national origin.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoNobody is "expecting complex products with many parts to have a single origin." And normally I'd agree that Made In the USA is diet xenophobia, but Harley specifically, and heavily, lean into being "made in the USA" - as do their owners, and certain politicians who introduced tariffs (and caused retaliatory tariffs in the EU. Which Harley sidestepped by, drumroll please...opening assembly plants in southeast Asia!) Some engine components, some drivetrain components, all the electricals, all the suspension, and wheels are all made outside the US. That leaves the frame/body panels and some engine/drivetrain components as the only stuff sourced in the US - and yes, the engine/bike assembled in the US.
- hk1337 3y agoRule of Acquisition #239 - Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
- PontifexMinimus 3y agoEspecially when any fine will be merely a rap on the knuckles. From the article: > the company raked in nearly $8.7 billion in sales last year.
- _heimdall 3y ago> It's interesting to question, however, if U.S.-made labels have at all contributed to the company's success. The article did follow up the total sales number with this caveat though. It seems reasonable that the products could have accounted for more than $3.18M in sales, though we really don't know total sales of the falsely labeled products or what percent of those sales only happened due to the Made in the USA label.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> we really don't know total sales of the falsely labeled products or what percent of those sales only happened due to the Made in the USA label. We can speculate about that second question, though. Have you ever made a purchase decision based on a country-of-origin label?
- wccrawford 3y agoI'm not sure why you're being downvoted for that. It was part of Walmart's early success that they sold products made in America, and there was a long time that people griped about it no longer being true. Clearly people care.
- Tagbert 3y agoThe question may have come off as implying that people do not made buying decisions based on the country of origin label. I imagine that many people’s own buying habits show them that the label does have an impact.
- bequanna 3y agoCool, so to summarize the fine: - The size is so small it is essentially meaningless to the company. - Customers who were tricked receive nothing. - The FTC has more play money to continue bureaucratic empire building and create more do-nothing jobs.
- pylua 3y agoAs a lay person, and not a lawyer, I'm not sure how this is not considered large scale fraudulent misrepresentation. It seems like the fines are extremely light, and there is no real accountability. In the very least, they should be required to offer refunds to all people who bought those products.
- deadbabe 3y agoWhat exactly have customers lost by buying something that wasn’t actually made in America?
- sosodev 3y agoWhat do companies gain by pretending that their product is made in America?
- glimshe 3y agoMany people in the US will pay more for a product made in the US. I'm one of these people.
- calderknight 3y agoA USA made product
- coolhand2120 3y agoFaith in the system
- QU0507 3y ago[flagged]
- suyash 3y agoSo company supposedly cheated customers by mislabelling and government is collecting a huge fine, will the people who got cheated see their money back or it just goes to Uncle Sam's pocket?
- rcstank 3y agoWe need to legislate that any fines like this go back to customers instead of government /s
- VS1999 3y agoWhat do you mean supposedly? They absolutely cheated customers.
- azinman2 3y agoIt goes back to customers: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/recent-ftc-cases-resulting-refunds/refund-programs-frequently-asked-questions#Question%2010 https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/recent-ftc-cases-resulting-r...
- geor9e 3y agoCompany With $8.7B in Yearly Sales Pays $3.18M Marketing Fee Covering Several Products for The Last Four Years, Will Report As "Misc Expenses" In Quarterly Report
- jayyhu 3y agoI think in a more fair world, they should be forced to recall all falsely labeled "Made In USA" products and offer to replace them with real products made in the USA.
- whamlastxmas 3y agoIn a more fair world, corporations would go to jail (cease all operations for set number of years) just like the humans they share free speech rights with
- buildsjets 3y agoSee, that's the secret, because if you call them "Legal Expenses" you will definitely wind up on trial in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Misc can cover a lot of things.
- imagetic 3y agoIt sounds like they made a good investment on that order of MADE IN USA labels.
- hi-v-rocknroll 3y agoThe Sapian MADE IN USA scam was even worse as it both evaded taxes and misrepresented the country of origin by shipping stuff through the Northern Mariana Islands. https://www.bmwe.org/journal/1999/09SEP/b04.htm https://www.bmwe.org/journal/1999/09SEP/b04.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_CNMI_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_CNMI_scandal
- tombert 3y agoSince this is the second time this has happened, I kind of feel like subsequent offenses need to grow exponentially, like 3x for each new fine. That would make the next fine $9M, than $27M, then $91M etc. I think that would avoid the fine just becoming an extra tax.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y agoI think even the first offense should be all associated revenues plus a punitive fine on top of that. This current fine is nothing.
- gmd63 3y agoAny lawyers here able to explain why the fine is negligible? Feels like a complete joke, encouraging dishonesty as the winning strategy in business. Are judges scared they'll be assassinated or something? Do we need to anonymize them?
- vl 3y agoTo know if fine is disproportionately small you need to know the volume of sales of the mislabeled goods. If they sold only $500k of goods, then fine is unreasonably large, for example.
- 1123581321 3y agoI don't know the sales volume, but this fine is for, if I read correctly, seven products. WS has roughly 15,000 products across its brands. So the fine may be in the ballpark of one year's sales, which would be about 5.5x their profit on those sales. But that assumes these products' revenue and margins are proportionate to the rest of them.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y agoAlso, the damage to the brand is almost certainly greater than the fine.
- tmaly 3y agoReminds me of the case a farmer is bringing against USDA on the USDA organic label. They are allowing foreign farms to label things organic without any controls or checks.
- boppo1 3y agoCan you recall the case name? I'd like to read it!
- tmaly 3y agoA federal complaint filed by Pratum Farm of Salem, Ore., alleges a new USDA regulation unlawfully favors “foreign agribusiness,” allowing food exporters to aggregate and sell crops as “organic” though only about 2% of their suppliers are “spot checked” by certifiers.
- xyst 3y agoYou would think a California company would be smart and brand their products as “designed in USA” (like their Silicon Valley counterparts) and have “made in foreign country” in small print either on the box or hidden in the instruction manual
- hi-v-rocknroll 3y agoLaser engraved in 0.5 pt font on white plastic.
- Clubber 3y agoWhy is this not criminal fraud? If you or I did it, we'd be prosecuted.
- gruez 3y agoMy guess: going after them civil courts has lower burden of proof and/or FTC can't go after people criminally and has to refer cases to the DOJ.