Lowe’s class action claims company ‘sneaks’ items into consumers’ online carts

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Lowe’s class action overview: 

• Who: A Lowe’s customer is suing the company.
• Why: The plaintiff says the company needlessly sneaks items into customers’ online shopping carts.
• Where: The Lowe’s class action lawsuit was filed in a Virginia federal court. 
• What are my options: Consumers looking for alternatives to Lowe’s may be interested in Ace Hardware.

A Lowe’s customer is suing the company alleging it needlessly sneaks home improvement items into customers’ online shopping carts, in violation of the law.

Plaintiff Eleanor Lovinfosse filed the class action lawsuit against Lowe’s Companies Inc. on April 28 in a Virginia federal court, alleging violations of state and federal consumer laws.

Lowe’s specializes in home improvement, selling a range of items from potted plants to cabinets from its stores and website.

According to the lawsuit, the standard online purchase experience involves a customer selecting items from the online store, adding them to their “cart,” entering their billing and shipping information and clicking to complete their transaction.

“However, unscrupulous merchants utilize Online Choice Architecture (OCA) to the detriment of consumers,” the lawsuit states.

One subset of OCA is referred to as “sneak into basket” or whereby “somewhere in the purchasing journey the site sneaks an extra item into the shopping basket, often through the use of an opt-out radio button or checkbox on a prior page.”

Lowe’s sneaks items into baskets to increase profits, lawsuit alleges

Lowe’s allegedly uses this tactic expecting that consumers will keep the added products or services in their cart, by either choosing not to remove the added items or not noticing them before the transaction is complete.

For example, if a consumer buys a certain GE front-load washer, it sees a small “I” symbol, which, if clicked, denotes that Lowe’s has also added a water hose to the cart that it claims is required to go with the product, the lawsuit states. However, the lawsuit alleges the washer already comes with a water hose.

Lowe’s employs “sneak into basket” across a variety of items, and in many of those instances, the “required” items are only there to increase average spend, boosting the company’s profits, the lawsuit alleges.

As a result, Lovinfosse seeks to represent a class of consumers in Virginia who were affected by the alleged tactic, plus a consumer fraud multi-state class of consumers from Arkansas, Kentucky, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah.

She is suing for violations of state consumer laws, breach of warranty and negligent misrepresentation and seeks certification of the class action, damages, fees, costs and a jury trial.

Meanwhile, Lowe’s Home Centers LLC fails to pay employees accurate wages and allow breaks, according to a wage and hour class action lawsuit filed in January in a California federal court.

Have you been affected by the allegations against Lowe’s in this case? Let us know in the comments!

The plaintiff is represented by Courtney Weiner of the Law Office of Courtney Weiner and Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan & Associates P.C. 

The Lowe’s class action lawsuit is Eleanor Lovinfosse, et al. v. Lowe’s Cos. Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-00574 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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