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Office Depot Faces California Lawsuit Over Deceptive Pricing Tactics.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Office Depot in California, accusing the retailer of misleading pricing and advertising practices. The lawsuit claims that Office Depot uses inflated “reference prices” to make products appear as if they are being sold at a significant discount when, in reality, they are not.The legal complaint describes this tactic as a “phantom discount,” where the reference price, which is supposed to reflect the product’s “prevailing market price” within the past 90 days, is set artificially high. According to the suit, the Wayback Machine shows that Office Depot previously sold the same product — Bounty paper towels — for a lower price just three months ago.
As more retailers, including grocers, adopt retail media and data-driven sales strategies, concerns about price manipulation are expected to rise. This trend could lead to an increase in pricing-related lawsuits, beyond just class actions. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is actively gathering information and working on new regulations addressing what it refers to as “surveillance pricing.”
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