Harbor Freight lawsuit

[California]

National Sale Price Settlement

Dang. We all should have gone to law school.

===
"24. How much in attorney’s fees will be paid to Class Counsel?

The Court approved payment of attorney’s fees and reimbursement of their expenses of $10,000,000. Attorney’s fees and expenses will be paid by Harbor Freight and will not reduce payments to Class members."
====

 

[Dftodd]

My wife went onto a goverment website a few years ago. It was for unclaimed money's that are owed to you. She checked and claimed money's owed to each one of the kids. Each of the boys had a couple grand owed to them each from former employers and such. Then she checked and claimed for her. One was $10, then she clicked on the next and it was for $.01

She forgot to tell me about it. Imagine my surprise when she went out of town and told me to open her mail (we were expecting a couple doctors bills) and here's a check that showed up for $.01

Well on the site, you can't actually find out what's owed to you till after you click and claim the money.

 

[daugen]

If I were the owners of Harbor Freight, I'd be very nervous, after getting hit with this settlement and facing
a high likelihood of most of their inventory getting hit by large tariffs soon.

As far as the lawsuit, I've said before I think they deserved everything they got.
I have a marketing background and I can see deceptive advertising very easily.
It's like a carnival of lights and smoke you have to walk through, and the prices change all the time.
this coupon or that sale, it's all smoke and mirrors hoping you buy at the wrong price, i.e. not the lowest
price they offer.
I no longer buy from HF. If they totally redid their advertising methodology and brought a little class
and transparency into their marketing, I'd consider them in the future. Not now. And this lawsuit did not stop the
crazy promotional advertising at all. Same old HF it seems.

Personally I think HF took a very good thing and shot themselves in the foot.
They had the products, they had the selection, they had the pricing. Why complicate that with
a crazy marketing scheme? Reminds me of Crazy Eddie's in NYC. I used to compete with them and
they went out of business of course. Only one price in my store, no deception, no reading tiny print on coupons.

Tone it down HF and let your products speak their high value for themselves.
Until then, it's almost all available now on Amazon.

 

[dragoneggs]

I don't care how they advertise. I don't care if they say this is a $1,000 value for only $19.95. I will look at and evaluate the merchandise and decide if it's worth their asking price to me. I buy some things there that I think are a good value for infrequent use. For things I need to rely on to always work, I buy more premium brands.

:thumbsup: Agreed... value is a subjective thing. How/why someone should get screwed or sued over that is beyond me.

In my case, it's close to $400.00, considerably more than the initial estimates.

Holy smokes! Lucky you!

She forgot to tell me about it. Imagine my surprise when she went out of town and told me to open her mail (we were expecting a couple doctors bills) and here's a check that showed up for $.01

About what I would expect... not worth the effort to us minions, only the sleazy lawyers.

 

[Dftodd]

Dragoneggs, the site my wife went to was run by the US treasury department. No lawyers involved

It was unclaimed monies from employers and such. Wife checked my name and claimed for me as well. I had a couple hundred bucks owed to me from over paid interest from an auto loan that was paid off early.

 

[dragoneggs]

If I were the owners of Harbor Freight, I'd be very nervous, after getting hit with this settlement and facing
a high likelihood of most of their inventory getting hit by large tariffs soon.

As far as the lawsuit, I've said before I think they deserved everything they got.
I have a marketing background and I can see deceptive advertising very easily.
It's like a carnival of lights and smoke you have to walk through, and the prices change all the time.
this coupon or that sale, it's all smoke and mirrors hoping you buy at the wrong price, i.e. not the lowest
price they offer.
I no longer buy from HF. If they totally redid their advertising methodology and brought a little class
and transparency into their marketing, I'd consider them in the future. Not now. And this lawsuit did not stop the
crazy promotional advertising at all. Same old HF it seems.

Personally I think HF took a very good thing and shot themselves in the foot.
They had the products, they had the selection, they had the pricing. Why complicate that with
a crazy marketing scheme? Reminds me of Crazy Eddie's in NYC. I used to compete with them and
they went out of business of course. Only one price in my store, no deception, no reading tiny print on coupons.

Tone it down HF and let your products speak their high value for themselves.
Until then, it's almost all available now on Amazon.

I have a totally different take on it. They raise/lower their prices on a schedule. No different than big box department stores like Macy's, and others. It is just they advertise intensely. Fine print, yes... but so do others. Read the fine print when shopping at other places, almost always certain store wide discounts do not apply to certain name brands.

I am not up on the 'crime' HF committed but most class action lawsuits I have paid a little attention to, seem to be a con by lawyers. They walk away with 30-50% of the take after getting enough customers to complain. The supposed 'injured' ones divvy up the rest. Bunch of crap that stinks bad. Not all lawyers are bad but some are scum. I have witnessed a few that are just predators not protectors.

 

[stuckmotor]

I never paid much attention to the claimed regular price. My biggest gripe is the tiny print of the expiration dates on the coupon. I used to get into a HF store and head for the magnifying glasses with the alligator clips to read the dates. Lately those magnifiers have been enclosed in plastic. I'm more likely to buy a load of items at full price if I've shopped for an hour and waited in line before finding my cupons won't work. I wonder if the people who design the coupons know that?

 

[Oaktree]

If I were the owners of Harbor Freight, I'd be very nervous, after getting hit with this settlement and facing
a high likelihood of most of their inventory getting hit by large tariffs soon.

Everybody else will be affected as well, since most if not all of the "name" brands' tools are made in China too.

As far as the lawsuit, I've said before I think they deserved everything they got.
I have a marketing background and I can see deceptive advertising very easily.
It's like a carnival of lights and smoke you have to walk through, and the prices change all the time.
this coupon or that sale, it's all smoke and mirrors hoping you buy at the wrong price, i.e. not the lowest
price they offer.
I no longer buy from HF. If they totally redid their advertising methodology and brought a little class
and transparency into their marketing, I'd consider them in the future. Not now. And this lawsuit did not stop the
crazy promotional advertising at all. Same old HF it seems.

You say this like it's somehow unique to HF. Car ads have to be some of the most deceptive advertising there is...every night I'm assaulted by ads on tv that are way louder than other programming with the sale-of-the-month offering too good to be true lease prices on cars that don't exist (ie-ultra strippo models with vinyl floor mats, only an AM radio, and in some ugly color like diarrhea brown, yet are described as "well equipped"). Try to actually buy one for that price. If not that, they're making ridiculous claims and/or bashing the competition making their brand sound better than it really is. Around here toyota is one of the bigger offenders, though they're far from alone.
What about furniture stores with continuous "50% OFF!!" or "lost our lease" sales?

Personally I think HF took a very good thing and shot themselves in the foot.
They had the products, they had the selection, they had the pricing. Why complicate that with
a crazy marketing scheme? Reminds me of Crazy Eddie's in NYC. I used to compete with them and
they went out of business of course. Only one price in my store, no deception, no reading tiny print on coupons.

Tone it down HF and let your products speak their high value for themselves.
Until then, it's almost all available now on Amazon.

Not sure what you mean by "having a good thing and shooting themselves in the foot". Before discovering this thread maybe 3-4 years ago I was only vaguely aware of HF's existence, and what little I knew about them led me to see them as a mostly mail-order place that sold what my high school shop teacher used to call "cream cheese" tools. The same cheap junk you'd get from those travelling tool and electronics liquidators that set up in set up in hotel conference rooms for a weekend.

Even now that we've had a store in the area for a couple years I still think of most of their products as disposable tools. For example, I have a Dremel and an HF oscillating tool...night and day difference between the 2. Maybe some of their newer products have quality approaching name brands, but the prices are too. You get what you pay for, anyone who thinks they're getting a professional quality tool for half the price of a name brand has a rude awakening coming.

 

[Diggin It]

I am not up on the 'crime' HF committed but most class action lawsuits I have paid a little attention to, seem to be a con by lawyers. They walk away with 30-50% of the take after getting enough customers to complain. The supposed 'injured' ones divvy up the rest.

If somebody's gonna give me $400 but tell me I can only spend it in their store where I usually buy stuff anyways ... I'll take it.

My biggest gripe is the tiny print of the expiration dates on the coupon.

My biggest gripe is the ever increasing list of exclusions on the 20% and 25% off coupons.

Same with Penny's, Sears, Office Depot and others though.

 

[Diggin It]

The same cheap junk you'd get from those travelling tool and electronics liquidators that set up in set up in hotel conference rooms for a weekend.

I got some decent stuff from Homier. Still have it. Still use it. I forget the name of the other one now, but once HF opened up, none of them come around here any more.