If you believe that you’ve been a victim of deceptive advertising, you might be tempted to take the company or individual that wronged you to court. Lawsuits for deceptive advertising can go either way, depending on the strength of the evidence collected and the degree to which the defendant protected himself. Most large companies, for example, have entire legal departments in their employ, who work tirelessly to ensure they won’t be legally liable for anything.
Of course, even the major companies have been sued for deceptive advertising and a host of other infractions that have forced them to pay out billions of dollars. Why should your case be any different? If you want to sue for deceptive advertising, here are a seven mistakes a company can make for which you can go to court:
Inaccuracy
If an advertisement isn’t accurate in regards to the product, service or special offer, you might be able to sue for deceptive advertising. For example, a blanket that is sold as “fireproof” shouldn’t catch fire when exposed to flames. The company should have advertised it as “fire resistant”, which would have allayed all claims. In order to prove this aspect of your case, you’ll need to demonstrate that the company knowingly supplied false information to make a sale.
Misuse of the Word ‘Free’
This is a major reason to sue for deceptive advertising, and has indeed sparked many a lawsuit over the last fifty years. If a company advertises a product as ‘free’, or says that it comes with a ‘free gift’, the item in question must indeed be free of any purchase requirements or other criteria. If you see the word ‘free’, and discover that there is nothing ‘free’ about it, you might have a prime lawsuit to file.
This also applies to the mark-up on the price of an item to be able to include a ‘free gift’ while still maintaining the exact same product. For example, you could sue for deceptive advertising if a company raises the price of its compact disk by five dollars, then offers a ‘free bonus album’. The extra album isn’t technically free, and shouldn’t be advertised as such.
Easy Credit
Credit is another situation that often involves deceptive advertising. To entice the applications of more customers, a company might claim that it offers ‘easy credit’ or ‘guaranteed approvals’, when it actually is more stringent. If a business guarantees an approval on credit, no one should be turned away, so make sure you look for that kind of language before you decide to sue. The same goes for a product or service that ‘requires no credit check’.
If you decide to sue for deceptive advertising, you’ll need to have a copy of the ad in question-such as a cut-out of a magazine ad, or a video recording of a commercial you saw on television. You should also have a picture of the actual price tag along with any terms and conditions that might be different from what was advertised.
