False Representations

[unixronin]

cymrullewes picked up a box of Hannaford's house-brand rice-chex clone breakfast cereal yesterday, choosing it over brand-name Chex largely, I understand, because the box showed the cereal containing raspberries.  Needless to say, it doesn't.

(Actually, she's since clarified that the cereal she bought was a different one than the one she exclaimed over just before the cell connection dropped.  But anyway....)

Advertisers do this all the time.  How many times have you bought a package of food with a picture on the front that dramatically fails to match the contents, and a little tiny small-print disclaimer hidden somewhere on the box that says something like "New Wonda Choccy Sowbugs can be a part of this nutritious breakfast"?  Note that nowhere does it actually state that New Wonda Choccy Sowbugs is actually nutritious, or actually contains what the picture on the box shows.  What's worse, if it's not a food product, the odds are not insignificant that there's another piece of small print hidden somewhere that says something like "Manufacturer does not warrant any fitness or suitability for any particular purpose."

The UK has something called the Trades Descriptions Act that is supposed to restrict stuff like this.  You have to be very careful about what you claim in an advertisement in the UK, because any day, a representative from the inspectorate of Weights and Measures can walk into your office carrying a package of your product that he bought at random off a store shelf, and say, "You make this claim about this product.  Show me, with this one, right here, right now."  And you'd better be able to back up the claim.

I think the US needs one too.  It could be quite simple; all it needs to do is say something like this:

"If you, a product manufacturer, make what a reasonable person would take as a representation, via a commercial advertisement, a marketing claim, or a package illustration, that your product contains or does something that in point of actual fact it does not, and any purchaser of the product complains that the product does not in fact live up to this representation, then you are legally obligated to make up the misrepresentation to every purchaser of the product."

Discuss.

Comments

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

It exists.

Remember the model airplane boxes that were around when you were growing up, with the Wildcats or Hellcats or Mustangs, with an enemy fighter going down smoking? That wonderful artwork?


Welp, they got sued, because the box didn't include "all the fighters in the artwork".

So we got:


A picture of literally, what was inside the box. BLAH. (I'm surprised they weren't sued for saying the "model was piston-engined". Well, wait, maybe they were.)

I'll have to disagree with you - granted, it takes a bit of caveat emptor - but when I bought my generic Cheerios with the dried strawberries and raspberries the other day, I checked to see if, indeed, the box included the fruit implied by the picture. It did, I got it.

The alternative is easily demonstrated (By illustration using England) to be a morass of dumbass bureaucracy, nit-picking lawyers and lottery-seeking plaintiffs. Usually the descriptions are pretty good - I'll stick to what we've got. And I want that artwork back on the model boxes, dammit.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with having that artwork on the front of the box labelled as "Bearcats in action" and a picture of the actual model on the back of the box labelled "Model assembled according to included instructions". :)