Two consumers allege that Amazon misled customers by promoting false discounts on its site during its summer Prime Day sale.
In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in September in a federal court in Washington state, plaintiffs Cathy Armstrong of California and Oluwa Fosudo of Maryland claim that Amazon used "fictional" list prices to calculate its recent Prime Day percentage discounts, making deals appear better than they actually were.
The lawsuit details a number of examples of what plaintiffs alleged were "fake sales" during the four-day Prime Day event, which ran July 8-11.
One such example is a pair of headphones advertised by Amazon on Prime Day as being on sale for 44% off the product's list price of $179.95, according to the complaint. Plaintiffs claim that the item's list price has always been in the range of "$130 to $160" and that the advertised 44% discount was misleading.
"Amazon uses these fake Prime Day Percentage Discounts, offered under the extreme time pressure of the brief Prime Day window, to lure consumers to purchase products," the complaint states.
In another example, the lawsuit mentions an 8-inch Android tablet for kids listed as "40% off," based on a strikethrough list price of $119.99. However, in the 90 days leading up to the sale, the tablet was being offered for between $50 and $85, with a median price of $72, according to the suit.
That means the supposedly time-limited Prime Day Deal of $72.18 was actually higher than the tablet's $50...
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