The Federal Trade Commission continued its active enforcement agenda this week, targeting deceptive pricing practices across the healthcare, automotive, and retail sectors. The agency also took action against a martial arts franchisor for misleading earnings claims, secured a Robinson-Patman Act resolution involving wholesale T-shirt distributors, and distributed millions of dollars in consumer refunds stemming from prior settlements. These stories and more after the jump.
Monday, October 5, 2026
Tags: Consumer Protection | Bureau of Consumer Protection | Deceptive/Misleading Conduct | Franchises, Business Opportunities, and Investments | Small Business
- The FTC announced that Premier Franchising Group LLC (PFG) and its former franchise sales organization, Franchise Fastlane LLC (FFL), agreed to pay $1.85 million to settle FTC allegations that they made misleading representations about the Premier Martial Arts (PMA) franchise opportunity and violated the Franchise Rule. According to the FTC’s complaint, PFG and FFL made deceptive and unsubstantiated claims while promoting the PMA opportunity, including that non-martial artists could profitably operate PMA franchises on a semi-absentee basis working fewer than 15 hours per week. These claims led more than 200 consumers to pay initial franchise fees of $49,500 or more, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional expenses and, for many, significant debt. The complaint also alleges that PFG’s 2020-2022 Franchise Disclosure Documents contained deceptive earnings claims that lacked a reasonable basis, and that PFG and FFL failed to disclose required information about FFL personnel’s management roles in marketing and selling the franchise. Under the proposed settlement orders, PFG faces a $3,875,424 judgment, partially suspended upon payment of $650,000, while FFL is required to pay $1.2 million, with funds used to compensate franchisees. Certain franchisees will also have the option to cancel their franchise agreements without penalty. The Commission voted 2-0 to approve the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
Tags: Consumer Protection | Bureau of Consumer Protection | Health Care
- FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson sent letters to 24 of the nation’s largest healthcare services companies, warning that failing to provide patients with timely, accurate, and complete pricing information may constitute an unfair or deceptive practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act. The letters express concern that patients are routinely asked to commit to care—particularly routine and non-emergency procedures scheduled in advance—without knowing the cost, and that prices for the same service vary widely across facilities. The letters emphasize that compliance with CMS price transparency rules does not create a safe harbor from FTC Act liability, and that disclosures omitting physician or facility fees or covering only a portion of the expected course of care may be deceptive. Chairman Ferguson urged the companies to review their price disclosure practices and take swift corrective action.
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Tags: Consumer Protection | Bureau of Consumer Protection | Advertising and Marketing | Retail | Merchandise & Clothing | Consumer Refunds
- The FTC announced it is distributing over $100,000 in redress to consumers harmed by online sneakers and apparel marketplace GOAT. The payments stem from a settlement resolving allegations that GOAT failed to honor its “Buyer Protection” refund policy—frequently denying requests, issuing partial refunds, or providing store credits instead of full refunds—and violated the FTC’s Mail, Internet or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule by failing to ship priority orders as promised without offering consumers the option to cancel for a prompt refund. In 2025, GOAT directly refunded more than $736,000 to affected customers under the FTC settlement; the FTC is now sending checks or PayPal payments to 6,205 customers who have not yet received a payment, with check recipients directed to cash their checks within 90 days and PayPal recipients within 30 days.
Thursday, October 8, 2026
Tags: Competition | Bureau of Competition | Nonmerger | Retail | Merchandise & Clothing | Exclusionary Conduct
- The FTC announced that T-shirt manufacturer Gildan Activewear SRL and wholesale distributor S&S Holdings LLC modified their partnership agreement following an FTC investigation under the Robinson-Patman Act (RPA). The investigation was initiated after the FTC learned that S&S’s contract with Gildan prohibited Gildan from offering comparable pricing and discounts to S&S’s competitors—conduct examined as a potential violation of Section 2(a) of the RPA, which prohibits certain price discrimination by sellers, and Section 2(f), which prohibits knowingly inducing or receiving such discrimination. Gildan and S&S revised their agreement to confirm that it does not restrict Gildan’s discretion to set prices or offer partnership support to any other North American wholesale distributor, and the FTC closed its investigation. The resolution follows the RPA settlement reached the prior week with Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the largest U.S. wine and spirits distributor, which was the first RPA case resolved by a federal enforcement agency in over 20 years.
Tags: Consumer Protection | Bureau of Consumer Protection | Finance | Advertising and Marketing | Online Advertising and Marketing | Credit and Finance | FinTech
- The FTC announced it is sending more than $15.8 million to consumers who used cash advance app Cleo AI. The distributions stem from the FTC’s March 2025 complaint, which alleged that Cleo AI made misleading representations about the amounts and timing of available cash advances—including advertising access to “hundreds of dollars” when few consumers received amounts near those advertised—charged undisclosed fees for expedited cash advances that were not delivered within the promised timeframe, and employed subscription cancellation practices that impeded consumers’ ability to cancel. The FTC plans to send payments to 2,124,796 Cleo AI customers who paid for eligible instant cash advances, with eligible consumers receiving an email between now and October 26, 2026, and PayPal payments beginning October 27, 2026.
Tags: Consumer Protection | Bureau of Consumer Protection | Deceptive/Misleading Conduct | Automobiles | Advertising and Marketing
- The FTC announced that Greenway Auto Group agreed to settle allegations that it advertised vehicle prices that were allegedly thousands of dollars below what consumers were actually charged. The complaint alleges that Greenway added mandatory fees—including administrative, dealer, delivery, and processing charges—resulting in consumers paying an average of more than $3,350 over the advertised price in over 92% of transactions, and that certain advertised prices reflected conditional rebates and discounts available only to a subset of consumers. The complaint further alleges that Greenway sent promotional mailers representing that recipients had won cash prizes redeemable at its dealerships. The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection had previously notified Greenway of concerns regarding its advertising practices in a March 2026 letter; the complaint alleges that Greenway subsequently added price transparency representations to its websites while continuing the challenged pricing practices. Under the proposed order, Greenway is required to prominently include the actual consumer price in its advertisements and is prohibited from making misrepresentations regarding whether charges, fees, taxes, products, or services are optional or required, and whether any type or source of financing is required. The Commission voted 2-0 to authorize the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division.
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