US retailer Overstock faces huge fines, President claims unfair

The January 13 news, before a lawsuit against AOL retailer Overstock exaggerated contrast to price misleading consumers, the results of last week, the current overstock face a 6.8 million dollar fine.

The case originated in 2010, when California's district attorney sued Overstock, accusing them of deliberately exaggerating the original price of their goods, making their discounts look bigger, a behavior that could mislead consumers. A customer once ordered a set of patio furniture in overstock, when the merchandise marked the original price of 999 dollars, and overstock dozen 50 percent, customers billion "half" of the price to buy goods. When the customer received the goods, they found that the furniture had a sticker price of 247 dollars in the Wal-Mart label. Other consumers complain that jewellery sold on Overstock is priced at more than 3 times times the price sold elsewhere.

Wynne Carvill, a judge at the California Supreme Court, indicated in a recent court ruling to overstock that discounts based on the highest selling prices did not take into account market prices and actual shopping, suspected unfair competition and misleading consumers.

The court's preliminary ruling also ordered Overstock to mark the original price of their goods at the current market price, and ordered Overstock to publicize how they estimated the discount rate of the goods.

In a statement issued in Wednesday, Overstock's CEO said the ruling was unfair and should not be punished separately for a overstock retailer. The ruling also prohibits retailers from using words such as parity unless the retailer can compare it with all other retailers. Overstock currently has 1 million items including books, clothing, etc., to understand the price of all goods is really difficult to sell.

But Overstock said the ruling would seriously hurt the existing price mechanism, especially if it was difficult to pinpoint a comparable price, and it said it would appeal within 60 days of the court's decision to take effect.

Overstock officially began accepting bitcoin payments on January 10, and the first day of the program's launch, Overstock.com received a $130,000 worth of bitcoin payment order.