Andrew Cuomo (D)
WATERTOWN, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) -- A Utica, N.Y.-based furniture chain has been ordered by the attorney general's office to stop their deceptive pricing and deliver overdue products.
Affordable Furniture owner James Castellano received a cease-and-desist letter from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Democrat, demanding an end to its "Remerchandising Relinquishment" sale pricing practice.
Affordable Furniture uses fictitious usual pricing on their furniture ads that had no relation to the actual price of the store's merchandise, the AG's office said.
These fictitious prices lead consumers to believe that they were receiving a discount from the regular price in violation of the state law prohibiting deceptive business practices and false advertising.
Affordable Furniture -- with locations in Utica, Watertown, Rome and Syracuse -- was also ordered, following multiple complaints, to deliver furniture that they had failed to deliver within their set time frame to consumers.
The company has two weeks to complete deliveries or refund the consumers' money, the attorney general said.
"My office is committed to holding businesses accountable for the way they treat their customers," Cuomo said. "This furniture retailer was delinquent in deliveries and artificially inflated the prices of its inventory as a way to dupe consumers into thinking they could bargain to get a good deal. When we learned about these practices, we immediately intervened to put a stop to them."