Consumer Protection and False Advertising

Almeida Law Group has a team of attorneys focused on protecting consumers and holding companies accountable for false advertising. Those are broad areas, which is exactly why our team brings together attorneys with different backgrounds and specialties.

As a consumer, you can usually tell when something feels “off” during a transaction. One of the biggest “tells” for a purchase not being quite right is unexpected or hidden charges. Unexpected fees, higher charges than promised or sudden changes to what you owe are often signs of unfair or deceptive practices, including what are commonly called junk fees.

Almeida Law Group’s attorneys fight back against this type of deceptive practice every day. We focus on making the consumer experience fair and transparent. That work includes bringing cases against banks, credit unions, financing companies, apartment management companies, and other businesses that profit from hidden or misleading charges.

Our consumer protection cases commonly involve:

If a price increases right before checkout, you may have been charged a junk fee or subjected to drip pricing. These fees are often disclosed only at the last step of a transaction, after you have already invested time and effort into completing your purchase.

Some of our current junk fee and drip pricing cases seek to:

• Ensure campers who book reservations through Reserve California are not charged last-minute fees;
• Stop Greystar from charging apartment renters undisclosed fees that were not included in the original quoted price; and
• Prevent Avis and Budget from adding extra charges at the end of the rental car process.

Fees that appear without warning often were not disclosed clearly or at all. In many cases, companies attempt to charge fees that consumers never agreed to or could not reasonably understand or avoid at the time of purchase.

Our attorneys have brought litigation involving undisclosed or improperly charged overdraft fees, pay-by-phone fees and charges for add-on products or services that were never clearly disclosed, including additional mortgage insurance.

Free trials that quietly convert into paid subscriptions or cancellations that never seem to stick are common problems. In many cases, these auto-renewal programs do not comply with state or federal law.

Our attorneys evaluate whether subscription practices violate consumer protection laws and take action when companies fail to follow the rules.

Most people have experienced this at least once. You read the label, review the claims, buy the product, and only realize later that it is not what was promised.

Consumers rely on companies to accurately describe what they are selling. When those claims are misleading or false, that is false advertising.

False advertising takes many forms. A product may be marketed as “Preservative Free” when it contains preservatives, labeled “Made in America” despite being manufactured overseas or advertised as “100% effective” when it clearly is not. When something sounds too good to be true, it often is.

False advertising is incredibly frustrating; it’s also very harmful. It hurts consumers, disadvantages honest competitors, and violates the law.

We routinely bring actions against companies for deceptive or false advertising. Some of our current cases include:

• Levy v. Hu Products LLC, 1:23-cv-01381 (S.D.N.Y.), a settled class action alleging unsafe levels of lead in chocolate products;
• Litigation against Costco for advertising rotisserie chickens as containing “no preservatives” when preservatives are present;
• Claims against Epic Games for advertising Fortnite gift cards as redeemable for V-Bucks when they are often unusable; and
• A case involving pencils labeled “Made in the U.S.A.” even though key components are imported from China.

If you are a consumer and feel like you may have been a victim of one of these practices, we ask that you reach out to us here. We count on consumers like you to be vigilant, know when something feels “off” and tell us about it so that we can help you hold wrongdoers accountable. We would love to speak with you about any consumer protection violations you think you may have experienced.