FTC settles with sellers of antennas, signal amplifiers

Federal Issues FTC Settlement UDAP Deceptive FTC Act Enforcement

On April 8, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a nearly $32 million judgment against the owners and operators of a New York-based enterprise that sells antennas and amplifiers (collectively, “defendants”) for allegedly misleading customers about the quality of their products. The agency alleges in its complaint that the defendants violated the FTC Act by “making deceptive performance claims for their over-the-air television antennas and related signal amplifiers, using deceptive consumer endorsements, and misrepresenting that some of their web pages were objective news reports about the antennas.” Under the terms of the order, the company is barred from making misleading claims about the products’ quality, the number of channels users can acquire, or any other claims about its ranking compared to other products. While the order imposes a $32 million judgment against the defendants, the full judgment will be suspended upon payment of $650,000, subject to certain conditions.