Air and water purifier brand Sterra has apologised and said that it will cease making false and misleading claims on the quality of Singapore's tap water, as well as other claims relating to its air and water purifiers.
This comes after the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) first initiated the investigation earlier this year under its fair-trading laws after receiving several complaints regarding an online advertisement by Sterra in 2024. The advertisement falsely claimed that Singapore's tap water is unsafe for direct consumption without being filtered using water purifiers sold by Sterra.
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Investigations by CCCS also revealed that Sterra had made other false and misleading claims on its website between February 2023 and March 2024. It had claimed that three of its models of air purifiers were made in Singapore when they were in fact made in China, and that two models of Sterra's water purifiers were marketed as Korean when they were neither sourced from nor manufactured in Korea. The two models were manufactured in China, said CCCS.
On top of that, the brand held false discounts. The “usual” (i.e. pre-discount) prices that Sterra claimed for comparison with its discounted price were not genuine previous prices and, in fact, never offered to any customer, added CCCS.
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