Fashion Nova Customers Can Apply for Refunds From $4.2M Review-Fraud Settlement

Alexandra Harrell
·2 min read
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People who were tricked by Fashion Nova‘s falsified product review scheme can apply to get their hands on some of the $4.2 million the retailer paid to settle a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint.

In January last year, the federal agency tasked with preventing customers and businesses from deceptive or anti-competitive practices found that Fashion Nova suppressed hundreds of thousands of reviews with ratings lower than four stars out of five. One Twitter user even alleged that Fashion Nova retail employees often write fake reviews as part of their job. In April of last year, the Cardi B collaborator came under fire in a class action lawsuit for “deliberately and knowingly engaging in misleading, deceptive and false statements regarding the products in the course of defendant’s business.”

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Fashion Nova customers can apply for a payment from the settlement if they purchased products online before Nov. 1, 2019, weren’t satisfied with what they bought, haven’t already gotten a refund and were directly influenced to purchase based on reviews and ratings. Payments will depend on several factors, the FTC said, including how many people file claims. Shoppers who qualify have until Aug. 15 to file a claim.

This is just the latest entanglement with the FTC for Fashion Nova. In April 2020, the fast-fashion brand faced allegations that it withheld information from shoppers regarding an order’s late status, preventing those consumers from canceling the order that wouldn’t arrive on time, as well as claims that it illegally used gift cards to compensate customers for unshipped merchandise instead of giving them a cash refund. The FTC used Fashion Nova’s $9.3 million settlement to pay out more than $6.5 million to over 500,000 affected shoppers while the retailer refunded $2.8 million to some consumers directly.

Despite Fashion Nova’s effort to quash bad reviews, Trustpilot found that 64 percent of customers prefer to buy from a business responsive to negative feedback over one that tries to seem like it’s never tripped up.

Fashion Nova did not respond to Sourcing Journal’s request for comment.

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