Attorney General Ford Sues Lens.com for Misrepresenting the Price of Contact Lenses in Search Ads and on Its Website

Carson City, NV - Today, Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced that he has sued to stop a long-running deceptive pricing scheme run by contact lens retailer Lens.com. Joining Attorney General Ford in the lawsuit are the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the attorney general of Utah. In a joint complaint, Nevada, Utah and the FTC allege that Lens.com, along with its owner Cary Samourkachian and an affiliated entity Speed Commerce LLC (together referred to as Lens.com), advertise artificially low prices for contact lenses but then charge consumers much higher prices through substantial, mandatory "taxes & fees" charges.

"Lens.com routinely hides costs that significantly increase the price it has advertised," said Attorney General Ford. "This unethical and illegal business practice costs Nevada consumers who are fed misleading information that harms their ability to make informed choices about who they do business with. Nevadans do not need any further strain on their wallets in this economy, and I will always hold bad actors accountable when they neglect their responsibility to our state's consumers."

The complaint alleges that the "taxes & fees" charge is buried deep in the checkout process and is never clearly and conspicuously disclosed to consumers. According to the complaint, Lens.com has also used deceptive pricing practices in connection with its "AutoRefill" subscription plan, which automatically charges consumers for recurring shipments of contact lenses.

These deceptive pricing practices obscure the total price of contact lenses, preventing customers from determining what they will really pay and thus from being able to compare Lens.com's prices against competitors' prices, the complaint further alleges.

According to the joint complaint, Lens.com deceived consumers in the following ways:

• Lens.com prominently advertises eye-catching, artificially low prices in sponsored Google search ads and on its website, www.lens.com. In reality, the advertised prices bear little resemblance to what consumers ultimately pay for contact lenses because Lens.com imposes a mandatory, substantial "taxes & fees" charge at checkout.
• Lens.com hides the "taxes & fees" line item during the checkout process, hiding the line item below the viewable portion of the screen while encouraging consumers to click a prominent "Continue" button to proceed with the checkout process rather than scroll down. Consumers who click the "Continue" prompt never see the "taxes & fees" line item at all.
• Lens.com also deceives consumers regarding the nature of the "taxes & fees" charge. That label misleadingly suggests the charge includes state sales taxes. In fact, many states exempt contact lenses from state sales taxes or have no sales taxes at all, yet Lens.com uses the label "taxes & fees" anyway.
• Lens.com uses these same deceptively low prices to induce consumers to enroll in AutoRefill, a negative option plan, and fails to clearly and conspicuously disclose the same hidden and misleading "taxes & fees" charge before obtaining consumers' billing information.
• Lens.com also fails to clearly and conspicuously disclose how to cancel the AutoRefill subscription and the deadline by which consumers must cancel to avoid incurring charges for a future shipment - burying that information outside of the AutoRefill purchase flow.

Nevada, Utah and the FTC allege these practices violate the FTC Act, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB Act), the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act (Utah CSPA), the Utah Automatic Renewal Contracts Act (Utah ARCA) and Nevada Deceptive Trade Practices Act (Nevada DTPA).

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