FTC Orders Fashion Nova to Pay $4.2M Over These Allegations

Fashion retailer Fashion Nova was ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay $4.2 million over allegation sthat it blocked negative reviews of its products from being posted to its website.

The announcement from the FTC was made on Monday, finalizing the order settling the allegations between the Los Angeles online fashion retailer.

Under the final order, the company must pay $4.2 million and is prohibited from suppressing customer reviews of its products.

In addition to the $4.2 million for harm consumers incurred, Fashion Nova is prohibited from making misrepresentations about any customer reviews or other endorsements. It also must post on its website all customer reviews of products currently being sold. This excludes reviews that contain obscene, sexually explicit, racist or unlawful content and reviews that are unrelated to the product or customer services like shipping or returns.

After receiving one comment, the commission voted 4-0 to approve the complaint and settlement order and send a response to the commenter.

In a complaint first announced in January, the FTC alleged that Fashion Nova misrepresented that the product reviews on its website reflected the views of all purchasers who submitted reviews. The company had instead suppressed reviews with ratings lower than four stars out of five.

Fashion Nova said in a statement in January, when the complaint was announced, that the FTC’s allegations are “inaccurate and deceptive.”

The company “never suppressed any website reviews, and it immediately and voluntarily addressed the website review issues when it became aware of them in 2019,” according to a statement.

“Fashion Nova is highly confident that it would have won in court and only agreed to settle the case to avoid the distraction and legal fees that it would incur in litigation.”

The company blamed its reliance on a third-party software vendor, which offered an option to “autopublish” various star ratings in a drop-down menu.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.