Gardening book direct marketer Oxmoor House and its parent company Southern Progress Corp. have agreed to pay $500,000 in civil penalties to resolve Federal Trade Commission charges. The FTC claimed that the companies did not adequately inform consumers about the terms of their “free trial” book offers, a violation of the FTC’s Negative Option Rule.
The FTC alleged that since 1997 Oxmoor’s advertising and telemarketing calls failed to disclose adequately that consumers who kept and paid for a book beyond the 30-day free trial period would be enrolled and sent notices about other books.
The clubs offered cookbooks and craft manuals.
According to the order, the firms must disclose all terms and conditions of membership in negative option and other marketing plans and stop all collection efforts for books shipped between Jan. 1, 1996 and Dec. 31, 2000 — the time when they allegedly did not comply with the Negative Option Rule, the FTC said.
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