Manufacturers are responsible for their products and advertising, and this responsibility is under the control of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Their handling of trade practices includes, among other things, the regulation of false advertising and the control of defective products. Advertising always gives certain guarantees to consumers, and if the manufacturer cannot confirm these guarantees, then the FTC comes into play (Jennings, 2021). Effective advertising always contains a large number of guarantees. However, the manufacturer must be confident in the quality of each of its production units.
The practice of defective products is now quite rare, as most recent FTC cases regulate the market for services and advertising inappropriateness. However, in 2019, Lights of America was sued by the FTC for many consumer complaints about light distortion and short-lived LED light bulbs (FTC, 2019). This type of defect belongs to the design category, not manufacturing since the entire line was broken in all retail chains. The design did not correspond to the same advertising statements, and the technique was used to compare the products with the brightness of other lamps.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a need for various specific products, from drugs to personal protective equipment. In April 2021, a St. Louis chiropractor selling a “cure” for the coronavirus was indicted by the FTC (FTC, 2021a). The products did not meet the advertised advertisements, violating an explicit public guarantee, which is also related to health. The content and accuracy of advertisements proved to be deceiving, and tactics were used to substitute concepts for profit (Jennings, 2021). False promises are much more common now in the service sector; for example, due to the pandemic, Trend Deploy could still make fast deliveries of information security tools and offer cancellation or refund (FTC, 2021b). As a punishment, the company will not only reimburse consumers but also be subject to civil liability.
References
FTC. (2021a). Quickwork LLC and Eric A. Nepute. Web.
FTC. (2019). Lights of America, Inc., Usman Vakil, and Farooq Vakil. Web.
FTC. (2021b). Trend Deploy. Web.
Jennings, M. M. (2021). Business: Its Legal, Ethical, and Global Environment 11th Edition. Cengage Learning.