On February 9, 2023 the New Jersey Appellate Division, in a published precedential decision, ruled that clothing retailer Aeropostale’s practice of falsely marking up prices on their garments to then apply fake or false sales is illegal in New Jersey (otherwise known as “Aeropostale Fake Sales”). Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged that they Aeropostale Fake Sales involved the purchase of several items from Aeropostale that were marked down to 60% off from an original price was false advertising and deceptive sales practice because Aeropostale never sold the items purchased at their original price aka Aeropostale Fake Sales, thus making the alleged discount a perceived “sale.” The trial court originally dismissed Plaintiffs’ Aeropostale Fake Sales complaint holding, among other things, there was no ascertainable loss (damages) to Plaintiffs and members of the public for the deceptive practice of a fake sale. The per curiam opinion by Judges Maritza Berdote Byrne, Richard J. Geiger and Clarkson S. Fisher, Jr. stated that plaintiffs were not required to prove their allegations this early in the action and held plaintiffs did adequately plead they suffered an ascertainable loss of damages through measuring damages by the loss of the Benefit-of-the-Bargain theory. The matter has been remanded back to the trial court for the matter to continue to be litigated.
At DeNittis Osefchen Prince, we have represented over 60,000,000 consumers in various class actions throughout New Jersey and across the country involving claims for fake sales, false reference price, deceptive sales practices and fake markup to markdown practices like the one with Aeropostale Fake Sales. In the past five years we obtained the following fake sales and deceptive sales practices settlements: Andrews v. Gap Factory a $240 million fake sale settlement, Barba v. Old Navy for $340 million consumer fraud sale settlement, Coladonato v. JCrew a $24 million fake sale settlement; Sekelew v. Burlington $9 million consumer fraud settlement.