A class action lawsuit is accusing the Washington Post Company of fraud for allegedly misleading customers by advertising alleged "phantom discounts" on subscriptions on its website.
"To sell more subscriptions and increase its profits, WP engages in a systematic and pervasive false-reference pricing scheme," says the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court. "It does so on its website by deceptively advertising digital subscriptions at prices that are designed to give the impression that the subscriptions are on sale and that they usually are sold at substantially higher prices. In reality, the subscriptions continuously are sold by WP on its website at or near the falsely claimed 'sale' price and never or almost never are sold at the purported regular and customary price."
The "deceptive pricing scheme" used images of a higher price with a strike through it, next to much lower prices, "thereby giving the false impression that the lower prices were discounted from the strikethrough reference prices," the suit says. "The strikethrough reference prices are misleading because they do not represent the actual prices at which WP regularly sold or sells the falsely discounted subscriptions. For an unreasonably extended period of time, i.e., from at least as far back as January 2021, if not earlier, WP has advertised and sold the falsely discounted subscriptions at the purportedly discounted prices, not at the strikethrough reference prices."
The suit seeks unspecified money damages, plus legal fees.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Eric A. Grover and Rachael Jung, of Keller Grover LLP, of San Francisco; and Scott D. Bernstein, of Folsom.
Hirlinger v. WP Company LLC San Francisco Superior Court, CGC-23-609585