Puritan’s Pride Class Action Says ‘Free’ Offers are Deceptive

Puritan’s Pride has been deceiving customers with false offers of free bonus products, according to plaintiffs in a false advertising class action lawsuit.

Plaintiffs Darcey Sharpe, Mary Ludolph-Aliaga, Jay Werner and Eva Krueger allege that nutritional supplement marketer Puritan’s Pride has been luring customers with false offers of free bonus products.

The plaintiffs claim these products are not actually “free.” They also say Puritan’s Pride falsely advertises a time limit on these offers that doesn’t actually exist.

Puritan’s Pride markets a line of “health and wellness” products, largely under its own brand. These products include nutritional supplements, foods, aromatherapy products, and pet products.

The company markets directly to consumers through internet, email, and snail-mail catalog promotions. Plaintiffs say Puritan’s Pride processes 20,000 electronic orders for its products per day.

The plaintiffs include in their Puritan’s Pride class action lawsuit several images of Puritan’s Pride promotional flyers offering various bargains in the form of “buy some, get more free.”

The problem is that Puritan’s Pride is constantly offering these allegedly free bonus products, the plaintiffs claim. They say there hasn’t been any time in the past few years that the company was not promulgating at least one standing offer for free products.

The plaintiffs reason that because these offers are ongoing, they are not really “sale” offers. Instead, they argue the cost of the products offered for free is actually built into the price of the purchased product.

Representing the offer as containing something for “free” is just a semantic trick designed to give consumer the impression they’re getting something they’re not, the plaintiffs say – or as they quote New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “a permanent sale is no sale at all.”

The plaintiffs cite federal regulations that they claim restrict this sort of advertising. According to these regulations, “a purchaser has a right to believe that the merchant will not directly and immediately recover, in whole or in part, the cost of the free merchandise or service by marking up the price of the article which must be purchased …”

The Puritan’s Pride class action lawsuit raises claims under several consumer protection statutes of New York and California and under similar laws of all other states.

The plaintiffs seek to represent a nationwide plaintiff Class consisting of all persons who purchased Puritan’s Pride branded products within the applicable statute of limitations period. They also propose to represent two subclasses of Class Members from each of their respective home states of California and New York.

They are asking the court to order Puritan’s Pride to stop the allegedly false advertising complained of here and to undertake a corrective advertising campaign to clear up any misconception about the price reductions on the defendants’ products.

They also seek restitution and disgorgement of revenues improperly gained, statutory and compensatory damages, plus court costs and attorneys’ fees, with interest.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Tina Mehr of Vision Legal Inc. and Travis Hodgkins of Civil Justice Law PC.

The Puritan’s Pride False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Darcey L. Sharpe, et al. v. Puritan’s Pride Inc., et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-06717, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.