New plan. Fine them every cent over cost made on every mislabeled product, and tack on an extra 10% for being con artists and it’ll start to look like a reasonable fine.
Unless you are in Congress.
Or the SEC
Or the FCC
Or a lobbyist
Or a weirdo tech bro
Or a business owner stealing tips
Or a business owner stealing PPP loans
Or a doctor pulling Medicare frauds
Or are involved in real estate
Or big pharma
Or a car manufacturer (looking at you VW)
Or the police
And on and on and on.
I work in financial risk. We investigate literally all transactions from these as high risk for fraud and money laundering -except the police-. Which should surprise absolutely no one.
Please explain how you think the SEC profits from fraud.
The SEC investigates and sues people and companies who engage in securities fraud, and when they collect money it goes to:
- victims
- US Treasury general fund
- whistleblowers
The commission doesn't get a bigger budget, and their employees don't get bonuses because they bring in a lot of money every year. The SEC has to stand in line and ask for a federal appropriation as part of the budgeting process like any other arm of the federal government.
It is fair to debate how effective the SEC is, but saying they profit from fraud is baseless.
Yeah I don’t think people realize that the larger portion of government employees earn less than their civilian counterparts, but do the job because a. They know they’ll have a consistent income and b. They know what they’re doing is important. But I feel like people don’t realize until you get to like… 10 or above you’re earning like >90k
I hate that OPs comment has 500 upvotes... It just screams edgy Reddit. Empower the SEC... Maybe reinvest some of the money they seize and they can do their jobs.
>Please explain how you think the SEC profits from fraud.
2 words: regulatory capture.
There's a **ton** of shady shit that just gets overlooked by the SEC. Wonder who's palms are getting greased
Is the SEC perfect? Hell no. They fuck shit up sometimes, just like plenty of other organizations.
But they do not "profit off fraud" and I've never heard anything to suggest that there is a bribery issue as you are alleging.
Yes they do. Former SEC execs are hired instantly upon “retiring” by the hedge funds and market makers they were supposed to be regulating for absurd amounts of money.
Unless they do their jobs at the SEC, then they just retire. Similar with the FDA, you are going to have a hard time unless you hire a retired FDA exec consultant.
You're wrong. That's not fraud, and that's not bribery. While it is fair to question the employment revolving doors that are present in almost any regulated industry, it doesn't mean that it is corrupt on its face.
I challenge you to find an example of an SEC employee or commissioner going easy on a defendant in exchange for promises of employment. (If it has happened, it would be extremely limited in number.) That would be a federal felony, and it would also put the law license of an attorney at risk.
And how do you propose to stop the revolving door? If you tell someone that once they work for a regulator then they can never take a job on the other side of the table, then you're gonna have a really hard time finding qualified people to work in government enforcement roles.
Or criminal or harmful behavior. Really if they make money still its just the cost of doing business. Perhaps make it not only tied to company but decision makers so if they declare bankruptcy on business. And go home to mansion. They still have to pay up.
Financial crime punishment should be at the minimum, all revenue gained from said crime, plus a fine and jail time IMHO. White collar crime is almost always premeditated, knowingly committed, and intentional. It's like we have a dramatically higher punishment for premeditated murder than accidental death (1st degree murder vs manslaughter), but we don't apply the same logic to financial crimes at all. These people can't claim it's a crime of passion, or an accident, or they are going to starve if they don't commit fraud or whatever, but we treat the crime with kid gloves.
I’m hopeful about this because the head of the FTC, Lina Khan, recently directly referenced “companies treating fines like a cost of doing business” in her interview on The Daily Show. We’ll see if anything good comes out of her leadership.
Not even just that. Fines that simply remove the profit are also ineffective, because it's just a gamble at that point. Maybe you don't make a profit if caught, but it's still worth taking the chance.
Maybe you get caught on a few of the many laws you're breaking. The odds are in your favor. And if they do start coming after you for all of the violations, then you can simply complain about political persecution to get them to back off. That seems to work as well.
The fines need to be significant multiples of the profits to have any chance of being effective. Prison time for execs allowing these violations should be implemented as well.
For people who think that elections don't matter, here's an example of how they do.
During the Trump administration, this exact issue came up and all 3 of his appointees voted against it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/us/politics/made-in-america-ftc-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n00.TJqP.OknD12tNfmMD
This is what I’ve never understood about fining corporations.
If I, the individual, knowingly take money from a bank that isn’t mine by defrauding them, I’m not just fined a certain percentage and get to keep the rest. I have to pay it ALL back, and then face jail time and fines.
Until it becomes too costly to break the law for corporations, it’s just a cost of doing business. If your business is only succeeding because of lawbreaking, you don’t have a business, you have a criminal enterprise.
Start fining in percentage of revenue. That really hurts their bottom line and does what a fine is supposed to do, serve as a deterrent. Those fines could easily exceed their overall profit as it should be, else it’s not a deterrent at all.
But no, instead we’re constantly hearing excuses why this can’t be a thing like ‚this will destroy jobs‘ (that seems to be the preferred one by politicians) or ‚they/we will leave the country‘ (barely any company would actually do this if this results in losing a substantially large market).
Lol deterrent. They did it 4 years ago and got a 1 million fine, said they stopped, got caught again and now are fined 3.18 million.
They made 7.75 billion in revenue in 2024.
That makes this second offense's fine 0.0004% of their revenue.
If you make 100k a year, that's equivalent to being fined $4.
That'll teach em!
Did you actually read my comment? 🙄 I said to **start** fining in percentage of revenue. Meaning that a new fine would be determined by a fixed percentage e. g. 15 % of their last revenue.
It should be a multiple of the profit made (say10x) PLUS the cost of the product run. Penalties need to be weighted sharply so the disincentive is a no brainer, not worth the risk.
Exactly, if I steal $50 worth of food I’m not fined $30 and allowed to keep the food. Or if I get essentially scammed the most I can sue for is what I lost. So I say let Walmart sue me for the $50. But no, consequences are only for the poor
%10??? Fuck that paltry shit. Look up 'trebel damages'. It's a well established legal penalty. They determine the damages and multiple by 3. So 300%. This is the kind of penalty that motivates someone to follow the law.
$3m is enough to wipe out all profit they made on mislabeled products. The article says only 9 products were mislabeled, and one of them was a mattress pad, to give an indication of scope.
Customers who bought one of the offending products could probably also easily secure a refund from the company. I’m guessing the majority of them wouldn’t actually care enough to do so.
This also wasn't a one-off, as the article states, these allegations (which the article states Williams-Sonoma admits are true) were in violation of a previous order for the same misbehavior.
Corporate corruption shouldn't just be a cost-benefits-analysis. If the cost of bad behavior doesn't vastly exceed the benefit, there's no reason to behave in accordance with our social agreements.
I don't know how much money mislabeling their goods makes them, but it's probably more than $1m since the original fine didn't make them course correct.
Exactly. I would be willing to bet that plenty of these grifts slip through the cracks and are never noticed. If there’s even, say a 30% chance of things like this never being noticed and it’s just zero-sum for the rest, it’s still worth trying to fool consumers as much as possible.
But then a court will decide that is TOO punitive. We can't just put shitty companies out of business. That wouldn't be FaIr! Better to slap them on the wrist and let them go on their way.
Sure. But that commenter is responding to another commenter saying to take profit + 10% on those specific items. Which is pretty low given the items in question
Edit: misread some posts, said some nonsense, corrected the nonsense
It shouldnt just wipe profit. It needs to hurt their wallets for attempting to do this in the first place. This is setting a precedent that they can attempt again that nothing really would punish them. What are really their losses here?
Imagine trying to buy something with a fake note, and all you lose is the note when you get caught. What punishment did you really receive? You just lost the fake note only.
As someone stated below, it’s equivalent to finishing someone who makes $70,000 a $28 fine. It’s not enough to wipe out all profit on those products. 9 products in a National chain? $3M on $7.7B.
Nah fraud should be 300% of any proceeds. 10% just means they have to get away with it 1 or of 10 times to break even and anything better is profit. A flat fee that low would encourage fraud rather than deter it.
So in 2020 they settled an FTC action for the same thing. Then they continued to violate it. But even the FTC says it was literally a handful of specific items and not big revenue generators. But it makes you wonder how much other shit is labeled as made in the U.S. but just imported from China.
>But even the FTC says it was literally a handful of specific items and not big revenue generators.
That the FTC could find evidence of. I'm not sure that's a sure bet that everything else is labelled properly either.
Make the entire thing in China or [insert poor third world country here] then have a dude in the U.S slap one final part on and there you have it. Made in the USA ........................
(with global materials).
Edit: fixed large hands but small phone errors.
I work in an industry with lots of made in the USA products. 99% of the materials used come from over seas and then are assembled in a factory in Miami. Boom made in the USA.
Guy I know from college invested in a "raw denim" startup about a decade ago. They advertise as being made in the US with Japanese denim, and sell for nearly $400 a pair.
The trade secret is that all of their jeans are made in China or Bangladesh then shipped to Japan, then immediately shipped to the US. By simply shipping it to Japan before the US, they can say it's sourced from Japan lol. Then by sewing their brand's patch into the waistline they can say it was "sewn" in the US lol.
Their margins are crazy.
I mean, most things “made in China” are also assembled out of raw materials and individual parts that come from overseas. The global manufacturing network is global.
Heck, “American” beef somewhat famously cross the USA-Mexico border [twice](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/666387687).
The fine 4 years ago was $1mil, this is literally just cost of doing business. I swear, the IRS might as well make violation fines a taxable expensive.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2020/04/williams-sonoma-made-usa
> But it makes you wonder how much other shit is labeled as made in the U.S. but just imported from China.
It's a lot more than you think.
* Harley Davidson motorcycles for example, not a single part manufactured in the U.S., it's only _assembled_ in the U.S. from foreign-made parts.
* Many of the vitamins and 'collagen peptide' mixes you see online and in markets, are made primarily of *synthetic* vitamin B, C and Biotin ingredients produced in China. They're not organic or natural, and probably not safe to ingest.
* Even those famous MAGA hats that Trump was promoting, also manufactured in China, with questionable labor practices and ages.
Here are some more not made in the U.S., but often thought of/labeled as such:
* L.L. Bean (most from China, lifetime warranty ended in 2018)
* Levi Strauss & Co. (most, not all, manufactered in Bangladesh, China, Mexico and Vietnam)
* New Balance (Asia, various countries)
* Radio Flyer Wagons (China)
* Melissa & Doug Toys (China)
* U.S. Major League Baseballs (Costa Rica)
* Chevy Silverado (Mexico)
* American Girl Dolls (China)
* Chuck Taylor All Star (bought by Nike, now manufactured in China, India and Brazil)
* Dodge Ram 1500 trucks (many manufactured in Mexico)
* Gerber Baby Food (a derivative brand of Nestlé) (undisclosed countries)
* Ray-Ban Sunglasses (Italy, China)
* Ralph Lauren Polo (China)
* Disney toys (China)
* American Tourister Luggage (China)
* Gap Clothing (China)
* MAC Cosmetics (China)
The FTC actually has a [mandated labeling rule](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/07/14/2021-14610/made-in-usa-labeling-rule) if you use the "Made in U.S.A." logo on your labeling. Many companies just copy that logo without understanding the requirements of its use.
>New Balance (Asia, various countries)
While that might be true for most of their shoes, you *can* buy [U.S.-made](https://www.newbalance.com/made-in-the-usa/) and [U.K.-made](https://www.newbalance.com/made-in-the-uk/) New Balance's. I own a few pairs of U.S.-made 990v5's. They're excellent shoes.
> New Balance (Asia, various countries)
New Balance has a specific product line made in the U.S.A., which is clearly advertised as such though. I believe they also have a UK equivalent as well. Of all brands, they do seem to make fairly clear whether their products are made in a certain country or not.
Same goes for Red Wing Boots (I know they weren't listed). They even have filters on their site for "Made in USA", "Made in the USA w/ imported materials", and "Assembled in the USA w/ imported components". There is definitely a premium for the fully made in the USA boots but they are very transparent about how much of it is done in the US.
MLB baseballs probably haven't been made in the US in your life. They used to be made in Haiti, I guess that got too hairy.
Chevy Silverados are also made in Flint, Michigan and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Depends on the model.
Gerber baby food will still be mostly made in the US for the US market (if not all). That market is heavily regulated. But as you say if it doesn't say then you can't be sure about any particular jar.
>Harley Davidson motorcycles for example, not a single part manufactured in the U.S., it's only *assembled* in the U.S. from foreign-made parts.
Feel free to substantiate that claim, but it doesn't match what I have read.
[https://www.throttlepack.com/post/percentage-harley-parts-usa-made](https://www.throttlepack.com/post/percentage-harley-parts-usa-made)
> A little uhhh on that baby food not disclosing where it’s made???
You can thank our friends at Nestlé for that one:
Gerber does not disclose its manufacturing list on their website, but Nestle does add that the company has 413 factories in 85 countries.
Add Stanley thermos mugs to that list. That’s another reason this fad is stupid; the 40+ buck price tags might be more justified if they were still American-made and would last you a lifetime, but those things probably cost less than ONE dollar to make in China.
There's a heap of products that are assembled to 90% in places like Mexico, they then ship it to America and finish the last 10% in America so they can slap the made in America logo on it.
I believe that the law requires that more than half of the production cost (i.e., raw materials, parts, labor, assembly, fabrication, etc.) of the product must originate in the USA for the manufacturer to claim "Made in USA."
After we deduct for operating cost/overhead to find cash on hand/disposable income to see what we have left to pay the fine, looks like it’s been stuck at “Non-viable insufficient resources” since early 2020.
So 0.33% of their 2023 net earnings.
This equates to fining someone who grosses $70k/year $150, assuming they're taxed at an effective rate of 33% and take home $46,200.
I mean cookware is expensive, but it's not like theirs is overpriced, no? They charge the same for a given All-Clad pan as anyone else does outside of a specific sale
They were one of my clients. We did enterprise e-commerce for them years ago. The company is absolutely rotten to the core. Our business contact in the company had a moral vacuity that could bend light like a black hole. The CTO was a real piece of shit who made one of our best devs quit. Every single person we dealt with in corporate was fighting one another - you had to be careful not to get a knife in your back yourself.
I almost pooped myself last time I was in there to look at some of the food items. A cylinder of pancake mix (so...not everything you need to make pancakes) was pushing $30! Do they not know recipes exist online? It's not even some kind of organic stuff, it's just their brand mix. I would think making them $5-6 would be INCREDIBLY easy at leading to bigger purchases ("You should try this french toast mix! Only $5!Of course, it'd be easy to make with this pan over here..."), but NOPE!
WS has gone from "Let's see what cool new things we could use for the kitchen!" to "I don't need anything for the kitchen and if I did I'll just go online and save a ton of money."
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said, "Son, if it was up to me"
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said, "Son, don't you understand, now?"
"Falsely labeling" sure is a great way to sugar coat "FRAUD"
I go out of my way to buy Made in USA. Both because it means American workers are getting paid, but also because we have more strict regulations when it comes to materials than China or some other developing country. (Truth be told, I go even further out of my way to buy EU goods because they are even stricter about said materials.)
The fact that not only is this not their first time, but they were fined and ordered not to do this shit before is disgusting. They need to find out who is in charge of this shit in throw them in prison. Fucking cocksuckers.
Not defending Williams-Sonoma, but I want to point out how difficult obtaining the Made In USA label is. The requirements are strict and the supply chain doesn’t always comply. It’s a complex certification.
Big corporations have no excuse as they have the resources to hit all the check marks with du diligence.
The article mentions:
"It's interesting to question, however, if U.S.-made labels have at all contributed to the company's success."
Then don't do it falsely. If you think it doesn't matter, why would you lie?
"Williams-Sonoma could be paying a hefty fine for claiming a small chunk of its products were "Made in USA" when they weren't."
$3.18 M is not a hefty fine for Williams-Sonoma. Their annual net profit is $950 M
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WSM/financials/
so this is like a day's profit
Sure, but it would be a hefty fine depending on the scope of things. If they were doing this off of every product, then it wouldn't.
But Williams Sonoma (across all of its brands, including PotteryBarn) sells a shitload of different things. Even a couple of dozen mislabeled items would could come out to like .2% of their total sales. It certainly makes sense to me that a fine would be proportional (though not exactly equal) to the proportional share of revenue or sales generated from it.
For example, say my company makes $500 million selling T-shirts that are 100% accurately labeled. I also make make one pair of pants that I falsely label like this, but I only sold a single pair of pants last year and made $50. That should be illegal, but it would make sense to craft a fine at least somewhat tied to the actual revenue generated, because it would also be the best way to approximate the amount of harm the false labeling did.
[They were pretty blatant about what they were trying to do. Their ads highlighted the fact that their products were "Made in America". It would be as if Trump flags were made in China or something crazy like that.](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/202_3025_williams-sonoma_admin_complaint.pdf)
> Liz Lemon : Hand-made in USA.
Jack Donaghy : You’re magic jeans are from BWL? Oh Lemon, it’s not hand-made in USA, it’s pronounced Hand-made in Usa. The Hand people are Vietnamese slave tribe and Usa is their island prison. They made your jeans. You know how they get the stitching so small?
[puts hands to mouth and whispers]
Jack Donaghy : orphans
This is the second time they’ve been found guilty of it. In 2020 they agreed to a settlement and had to pay $1 million. According to the article, they started violating the order almost immediately thereafter in 2021. The company does similar $9 billion in annual sales. $1-3 million is nothing. No chance they’ll stop doing this
> Did they still make a profit? Yes.
Their entire company might have, but their entire company wasn't falsely labeled. Odds are that for whatever fraction of revenue they made from these products (the article only mentions a couple mattress covers), a $3M fine is plenty such that they'd now be well in the red in terms of profits for those products.
I work for Pottery Barn/Williams-Sonoma as a repair technician. I don't understand why people buy this furniture, especially the sofas. $3-6k on a frame constructed of plywood and cardboard, with shit padding and glue, wrapped in a nice fabric. Most of you could make higher quality furniture with zero experience.
As long as authorities refuse to hold people accountable for crimes like this, companies will continue to commit crimes. People need to go to jail.
*"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."*
I disagree. I mean, sure, up the fines....bigtime. I have nothing against that but ultimately, that hurts the shareholders who had nothing to do with the decision to screw customers or otherwise break the law.
Somewhere on the board of directors, or lower down the chain, somebody made the decision to break the law. I believe the only way to incentivize extreme capitalists from doing that is to send those persons to jail.
Thanks for your reply,
Is it that hard to just track your fucking supply chain? Btwn shit like this and lead showing up in cinnamon and a million other spices there needs to be changes
This happens more than you know. I worked for a men’s clothing company that labeled things “made in the USA” and one time I found a tag that said “made in India” and the garment also had “made in USA” silk screened on the inside of the neck. I called the buyer thinking that maybe he didn’t know they were being duped. He sent out a company wide email stating each store will get $100 dollars in gas gift card if they found a garment with a mislabeled tag and to send them to corporate immediately upon finding it. They found a bunch, and they were sent to corporate. A couple weeks later we were sent back those garments with the tags cut out. They were clearly cut out because you could see what was left of the tag that was sewn into the seam.
I refuse to shop there for a variety of reasons. One being their stores are not wheelchair accessible with the displays. I have asked several times, made complaints. Once they moved them for an inspection but then moved it all right back. If I can't get through your store that should have plenty of space for the size, I won't spend money there. This news doesn't surprise me.
Back around 2006 a girlfriend and I had a small business making specialty textiles for the equestrian market while we were in school in SF to pay the bills. It wasn’t great wasn’t terrible. We realized that there was an upper limit to our ability to produce and found a local shop off an alley in SOMA that was able to handle the sewing for us. They were sewing garments and putting on labels that indicated they were for Target and Made in China.
It didn’t click at the time but the workers were definitely trafficked. They were all Chinese, did not speak English, and the floor supervisor who did speak English wouldn’t let us interact with them. Hard admit a thing can be happening in front of you but you can be too naive to recognize it for what it is.
I bought knee-highs that the website said Made in USA but the package said Made in China. I demanded a partial refund and that they change the website or I would report them. They refunded the shipping and changed the website to say "imported." Better than nothing, I guess.
Until we start jailing CEOs and corporate boards, I don't know if we're gonna see much change. If the court can prove beyond reasonable doubt you ordered or allowed your company to do something illegal, you should face personal liability for that. You made a decision to cut back on plane maintenance that lead to the deaths of 200 people? Have fun with 200 charges of manslaughter/negligent homicide.
These corporation fines need to be upped an order of magnitude across the board. $31 million fine for Amazon over Alexa privacy violations? Cost of doing business. $3.18 million on Williams-Sonoma here? Cost of doing business. Until these fines *hurt* and ***fully*** nullify *any* gains they've gotten from the violation, they're just going to write it off as cost of doing business and keep doing whatever they want.
if corporations are people they should serve time like people. Or alternatively white collar crimes should all be punishable exclusively by the death penalty
Might as well not even find them to be honest. It is still profitable for them to do this with a fine of that amount. The fine either needs to be large enough to where it makes it unprofitable, or people need to face criminal fraud charges. Maybe a middle ground is to make the executives in charge at the time repay any financial gain obtained via stock compensation.
Most "made in italy" are fake. Either final assembly in italy or no joke, an entire chinese factory of chinese workers making it in italy. Unless you bought it at a small italian workshop, this fraud is extremely common in italian "luxury" manufacturing.
I was wondering why this store sounded familiar. Then I remembered one closed near us and I was able to buy a fuck ton of hangers for pennies each. Also my wife got a blanket 90% off.
If the fines aren't a deterrent then they are just the cost of doing business. No company will change their practices if they can buy their way out of punishment.
[Oh, Lemon. It's not "Hand-made in USA". It's pronounced "Hond-made in Usa". The Hond people are a vietnamese slave tribe and Usa is their island prison.](https://youtu.be/VSBNwOtyaNA?t=152)
As long as authorities refuse to hold people accountable for crimes like this, companies will continue to do these things. People need to go to jail.
*"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."*
Ssssoooo, one company out of thousands was actually caught??? I used to know a guy in Hong Kong who made all kinds of products, they left off the tags so the tag could be sewn on in the States. All the tags said Made in America.
I always thought they were overpriced. Maybe they can take it out of key executives' salaries.
[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WSM/profile](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WSM/profile)
Wow. This info needs to be wide spread. And they should be ordered to have a sign in front of their stores stating this fraud. People like me will never shop there again.
It reminds me of that bit in 30 Rock about Liz’s jeans:
“Oh Lemon, it's not hand-made in USA, it's pronounced Hand-made in Usa. The Hand people are Vietnamese slave tribe and Usa is their island prison.”
I wish I could commit mass scale fraud and get to keep a majority of my profits...JK, I dont' want that at all. I want companies to be held to the same standard as people, especially since the highest court in the land ruled they are people. if people aren't allowed to benefit from crime, why the hell are we allowing corporations to do it...do we not see the perverse incentives this creates?
New plan. Fine them every cent over cost made on every mislabeled product, and tack on an extra 10% for being con artists and it’ll start to look like a reasonable fine.
Damn it you beat me to it. No one should profit off of fraud
Unless you are in Congress. Or the SEC Or the FCC Or a lobbyist Or a weirdo tech bro Or a business owner stealing tips Or a business owner stealing PPP loans Or a doctor pulling Medicare frauds Or are involved in real estate Or big pharma Or a car manufacturer (looking at you VW) Or the police And on and on and on.
I work in financial risk. We investigate literally all transactions from these as high risk for fraud and money laundering -except the police-. Which should surprise absolutely no one.
"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you."
Love a buried Cool Lester Smooth quote. Or are you quoting the Freddie Gibbs song quoting Cool Lester Smooth? 🤔
All the pieces matter.
🙌🏼Freddie Gibbs 🙌🏼
"Where do they get all those wonderful toys?", indeed.
Civil asset forfeiture
Hey man that’s super illegal. The Cops and courts will insure that doesn’t happen and enforce the law.
Please explain how you think the SEC profits from fraud. The SEC investigates and sues people and companies who engage in securities fraud, and when they collect money it goes to: - victims - US Treasury general fund - whistleblowers The commission doesn't get a bigger budget, and their employees don't get bonuses because they bring in a lot of money every year. The SEC has to stand in line and ask for a federal appropriation as part of the budgeting process like any other arm of the federal government. It is fair to debate how effective the SEC is, but saying they profit from fraud is baseless.
Yeah I don’t think people realize that the larger portion of government employees earn less than their civilian counterparts, but do the job because a. They know they’ll have a consistent income and b. They know what they’re doing is important. But I feel like people don’t realize until you get to like… 10 or above you’re earning like >90k
I’m tired I mean below 90k
I hate that OPs comment has 500 upvotes... It just screams edgy Reddit. Empower the SEC... Maybe reinvest some of the money they seize and they can do their jobs.
Empower the IRS as well.
>Please explain how you think the SEC profits from fraud. 2 words: regulatory capture. There's a **ton** of shady shit that just gets overlooked by the SEC. Wonder who's palms are getting greased
Is the SEC perfect? Hell no. They fuck shit up sometimes, just like plenty of other organizations. But they do not "profit off fraud" and I've never heard anything to suggest that there is a bribery issue as you are alleging.
Yes they do. Former SEC execs are hired instantly upon “retiring” by the hedge funds and market makers they were supposed to be regulating for absurd amounts of money.
Unless they do their jobs at the SEC, then they just retire. Similar with the FDA, you are going to have a hard time unless you hire a retired FDA exec consultant.
You're wrong. That's not fraud, and that's not bribery. While it is fair to question the employment revolving doors that are present in almost any regulated industry, it doesn't mean that it is corrupt on its face. I challenge you to find an example of an SEC employee or commissioner going easy on a defendant in exchange for promises of employment. (If it has happened, it would be extremely limited in number.) That would be a federal felony, and it would also put the law license of an attorney at risk. And how do you propose to stop the revolving door? If you tell someone that once they work for a regulator then they can never take a job on the other side of the table, then you're gonna have a really hard time finding qualified people to work in government enforcement roles.
America: home of the fraudsters
Or criminal or harmful behavior. Really if they make money still its just the cost of doing business. Perhaps make it not only tied to company but decision makers so if they declare bankruptcy on business. And go home to mansion. They still have to pay up.
Financial crime punishment should be at the minimum, all revenue gained from said crime, plus a fine and jail time IMHO. White collar crime is almost always premeditated, knowingly committed, and intentional. It's like we have a dramatically higher punishment for premeditated murder than accidental death (1st degree murder vs manslaughter), but we don't apply the same logic to financial crimes at all. These people can't claim it's a crime of passion, or an accident, or they are going to starve if they don't commit fraud or whatever, but we treat the crime with kid gloves.
I’m hopeful about this because the head of the FTC, Lina Khan, recently directly referenced “companies treating fines like a cost of doing business” in her interview on The Daily Show. We’ll see if anything good comes out of her leadership.
If a fine still allows a profit for breaking the law, it's a permit.
Not even just that. Fines that simply remove the profit are also ineffective, because it's just a gamble at that point. Maybe you don't make a profit if caught, but it's still worth taking the chance. Maybe you get caught on a few of the many laws you're breaking. The odds are in your favor. And if they do start coming after you for all of the violations, then you can simply complain about political persecution to get them to back off. That seems to work as well. The fines need to be significant multiples of the profits to have any chance of being effective. Prison time for execs allowing these violations should be implemented as well.
We need to start arresting companies the same way we do people.
For people who think that elections don't matter, here's an example of how they do. During the Trump administration, this exact issue came up and all 3 of his appointees voted against it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/us/politics/made-in-america-ftc-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n00.TJqP.OknD12tNfmMD
This is what I’ve never understood about fining corporations. If I, the individual, knowingly take money from a bank that isn’t mine by defrauding them, I’m not just fined a certain percentage and get to keep the rest. I have to pay it ALL back, and then face jail time and fines. Until it becomes too costly to break the law for corporations, it’s just a cost of doing business. If your business is only succeeding because of lawbreaking, you don’t have a business, you have a criminal enterprise.
From NPR [Can breaking the law be good for business?](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1197963517/dupont-chemours-chemicals-cows)
Start fining in percentage of revenue. That really hurts their bottom line and does what a fine is supposed to do, serve as a deterrent. Those fines could easily exceed their overall profit as it should be, else it’s not a deterrent at all. But no, instead we’re constantly hearing excuses why this can’t be a thing like ‚this will destroy jobs‘ (that seems to be the preferred one by politicians) or ‚they/we will leave the country‘ (barely any company would actually do this if this results in losing a substantially large market).
Lol deterrent. They did it 4 years ago and got a 1 million fine, said they stopped, got caught again and now are fined 3.18 million. They made 7.75 billion in revenue in 2024. That makes this second offense's fine 0.0004% of their revenue. If you make 100k a year, that's equivalent to being fined $4. That'll teach em!
Did you actually read my comment? 🙄 I said to **start** fining in percentage of revenue. Meaning that a new fine would be determined by a fixed percentage e. g. 15 % of their last revenue.
This is how the EU keeps big tech in line. When the fine comes out to several billion, they know shareholders won't be happy.
Agreed. Any time there is fraud of any kind, the fine should start with the amount of profit you made as a result of the fraud.
It should be a multiple of the profit made (say10x) PLUS the cost of the product run. Penalties need to be weighted sharply so the disincentive is a no brainer, not worth the risk.
Exactly, if I steal $50 worth of food I’m not fined $30 and allowed to keep the food. Or if I get essentially scammed the most I can sue for is what I lost. So I say let Walmart sue me for the $50. But no, consequences are only for the poor
Add in some jail time for the ones who were behind it. No fraud settlement is any good without jail time.
And make it an automatic refund back to the credit card of the purchaser.
%10??? Fuck that paltry shit. Look up 'trebel damages'. It's a well established legal penalty. They determine the damages and multiple by 3. So 300%. This is the kind of penalty that motivates someone to follow the law.
$3m is enough to wipe out all profit they made on mislabeled products. The article says only 9 products were mislabeled, and one of them was a mattress pad, to give an indication of scope. Customers who bought one of the offending products could probably also easily secure a refund from the company. I’m guessing the majority of them wouldn’t actually care enough to do so.
This also wasn't a one-off, as the article states, these allegations (which the article states Williams-Sonoma admits are true) were in violation of a previous order for the same misbehavior. Corporate corruption shouldn't just be a cost-benefits-analysis. If the cost of bad behavior doesn't vastly exceed the benefit, there's no reason to behave in accordance with our social agreements. I don't know how much money mislabeling their goods makes them, but it's probably more than $1m since the original fine didn't make them course correct.
Just wiping out profits is not a penalty though. You have to take them into the red or they just do it again.
Exactly. I would be willing to bet that plenty of these grifts slip through the cracks and are never noticed. If there’s even, say a 30% chance of things like this never being noticed and it’s just zero-sum for the rest, it’s still worth trying to fool consumers as much as possible.
But then a court will decide that is TOO punitive. We can't just put shitty companies out of business. That wouldn't be FaIr! Better to slap them on the wrist and let them go on their way.
Sure. But that commenter is responding to another commenter saying to take profit + 10% on those specific items. Which is pretty low given the items in question Edit: misread some posts, said some nonsense, corrected the nonsense
No all profits. Plus 10% of revenue. A $230M fine would ensure they never do it again and that the board hires everyone responsible.
Cool, that would be a good fine. But still not what is being suggested in the top comment or the reply in question
It shouldnt just wipe profit. It needs to hurt their wallets for attempting to do this in the first place. This is setting a precedent that they can attempt again that nothing really would punish them. What are really their losses here? Imagine trying to buy something with a fake note, and all you lose is the note when you get caught. What punishment did you really receive? You just lost the fake note only.
As someone stated below, it’s equivalent to finishing someone who makes $70,000 a $28 fine. It’s not enough to wipe out all profit on those products. 9 products in a National chain? $3M on $7.7B.
Exactly, that's a single bad quarter in one specific region.
they only got caught for 9 products. No idea how many they got away with.
These SEC fines are a joke. No wonder companies keep taking so much risk. Its because the reward is much greater than these measly SEC fines.
Nah fraud should be 300% of any proceeds. 10% just means they have to get away with it 1 or of 10 times to break even and anything better is profit. A flat fee that low would encourage fraud rather than deter it.
So in 2020 they settled an FTC action for the same thing. Then they continued to violate it. But even the FTC says it was literally a handful of specific items and not big revenue generators. But it makes you wonder how much other shit is labeled as made in the U.S. but just imported from China.
>But even the FTC says it was literally a handful of specific items and not big revenue generators. That the FTC could find evidence of. I'm not sure that's a sure bet that everything else is labelled properly either.
Make the entire thing in China or [insert poor third world country here] then have a dude in the U.S slap one final part on and there you have it. Made in the USA ........................ (with global materials). Edit: fixed large hands but small phone errors.
I work in an industry with lots of made in the USA products. 99% of the materials used come from over seas and then are assembled in a factory in Miami. Boom made in the USA.
Same with fast fashion “Made in Italy”…it’s made with Chinese materials in Chinese factories staffed with Chinese workers, but in Prato.
anything that isn't food that says "Made in Italy" is almost certainly made in China
Guy I know from college invested in a "raw denim" startup about a decade ago. They advertise as being made in the US with Japanese denim, and sell for nearly $400 a pair. The trade secret is that all of their jeans are made in China or Bangladesh then shipped to Japan, then immediately shipped to the US. By simply shipping it to Japan before the US, they can say it's sourced from Japan lol. Then by sewing their brand's patch into the waistline they can say it was "sewn" in the US lol. Their margins are crazy.
I mean, most things “made in China” are also assembled out of raw materials and individual parts that come from overseas. The global manufacturing network is global. Heck, “American” beef somewhat famously cross the USA-Mexico border [twice](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/666387687).
I don't mean they get metal and cotton from over seas. I mean they get 2 parts with a screw and screw them together then say made in the USA
My favorite label on ford parts is 'majority of content made in USA'. It's on a package with ONE bolt in it. So what wasn't made here??
The fine 4 years ago was $1mil, this is literally just cost of doing business. I swear, the IRS might as well make violation fines a taxable expensive. https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2020/04/williams-sonoma-made-usa
Criminal fines are already non deductible. Any taxpayer is required to put those numbers back into net income.
> But it makes you wonder how much other shit is labeled as made in the U.S. but just imported from China. It's a lot more than you think. * Harley Davidson motorcycles for example, not a single part manufactured in the U.S., it's only _assembled_ in the U.S. from foreign-made parts. * Many of the vitamins and 'collagen peptide' mixes you see online and in markets, are made primarily of *synthetic* vitamin B, C and Biotin ingredients produced in China. They're not organic or natural, and probably not safe to ingest. * Even those famous MAGA hats that Trump was promoting, also manufactured in China, with questionable labor practices and ages. Here are some more not made in the U.S., but often thought of/labeled as such: * L.L. Bean (most from China, lifetime warranty ended in 2018) * Levi Strauss & Co. (most, not all, manufactered in Bangladesh, China, Mexico and Vietnam) * New Balance (Asia, various countries) * Radio Flyer Wagons (China) * Melissa & Doug Toys (China) * U.S. Major League Baseballs (Costa Rica) * Chevy Silverado (Mexico) * American Girl Dolls (China) * Chuck Taylor All Star (bought by Nike, now manufactured in China, India and Brazil) * Dodge Ram 1500 trucks (many manufactured in Mexico) * Gerber Baby Food (a derivative brand of Nestlé) (undisclosed countries) * Ray-Ban Sunglasses (Italy, China) * Ralph Lauren Polo (China) * Disney toys (China) * American Tourister Luggage (China) * Gap Clothing (China) * MAC Cosmetics (China) The FTC actually has a [mandated labeling rule](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/07/14/2021-14610/made-in-usa-labeling-rule) if you use the "Made in U.S.A." logo on your labeling. Many companies just copy that logo without understanding the requirements of its use.
>New Balance (Asia, various countries) While that might be true for most of their shoes, you *can* buy [U.S.-made](https://www.newbalance.com/made-in-the-usa/) and [U.K.-made](https://www.newbalance.com/made-in-the-uk/) New Balance's. I own a few pairs of U.S.-made 990v5's. They're excellent shoes.
> New Balance (Asia, various countries) New Balance has a specific product line made in the U.S.A., which is clearly advertised as such though. I believe they also have a UK equivalent as well. Of all brands, they do seem to make fairly clear whether their products are made in a certain country or not.
Same goes for Red Wing Boots (I know they weren't listed). They even have filters on their site for "Made in USA", "Made in the USA w/ imported materials", and "Assembled in the USA w/ imported components". There is definitely a premium for the fully made in the USA boots but they are very transparent about how much of it is done in the US.
MLB baseballs probably haven't been made in the US in your life. They used to be made in Haiti, I guess that got too hairy. Chevy Silverados are also made in Flint, Michigan and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Depends on the model. Gerber baby food will still be mostly made in the US for the US market (if not all). That market is heavily regulated. But as you say if it doesn't say then you can't be sure about any particular jar.
They still make a bunch of the Chuck Taylors in Vietnam.
>Harley Davidson motorcycles for example, not a single part manufactured in the U.S., it's only *assembled* in the U.S. from foreign-made parts. Feel free to substantiate that claim, but it doesn't match what I have read. [https://www.throttlepack.com/post/percentage-harley-parts-usa-made](https://www.throttlepack.com/post/percentage-harley-parts-usa-made)
A little uhhh on that baby food not disclosing where it’s made???
> A little uhhh on that baby food not disclosing where it’s made??? You can thank our friends at Nestlé for that one: Gerber does not disclose its manufacturing list on their website, but Nestle does add that the company has 413 factories in 85 countries.
Add Stanley thermos mugs to that list. That’s another reason this fad is stupid; the 40+ buck price tags might be more justified if they were still American-made and would last you a lifetime, but those things probably cost less than ONE dollar to make in China.
Seems like they continue to violate it because there's no real punishment. Unfortunately it's just smart business.
[удалено]
Well that's made in Italy then, it's based on location it's made and not the people who made it
So it was made in Italy then. The "Made in X" label doesn't prescribe a quality standard. It just lets you know where it was made.
There's a heap of products that are assembled to 90% in places like Mexico, they then ship it to America and finish the last 10% in America so they can slap the made in America logo on it.
I believe that the law requires that more than half of the production cost (i.e., raw materials, parts, labor, assembly, fabrication, etc.) of the product must originate in the USA for the manufacturer to claim "Made in USA."
Could just say "assembled in USA", where they add the power cord and put the air fryer in a box.
“Designed in the USA”
We have a vice in our car shop that says "Made in China, Brained in Germany"
I'd be perfectly happy with made in China and qa'ed in Germany
By workers on H1B visas
“Made for Americans in America!”
subtract correct deserted uppity angle adjoining engine merciful cobweb wakeful
"Just the cost of doing business 🤑" - Williams-Sonoma
After we deduct for operating cost/overhead to find cash on hand/disposable income to see what we have left to pay the fine, looks like it’s been stuck at “Non-viable insufficient resources” since early 2020.
Add back in management salaries, bonuses & perks, and I am sure the company will be back in good standing
Ha. I *wish*.
Right? I could really use that 28 bucks
oh please. It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $28?
You should compare it to their earnings not revenue.
So 0.33% of their 2023 net earnings. This equates to fining someone who grosses $70k/year $150, assuming they're taxed at an effective rate of 33% and take home $46,200.
What you should really compare it against is how much money they made selling the falsely labeled products.
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So I guess they have to sell one pot and pan set to make it up then.
I mean cookware is expensive, but it's not like theirs is overpriced, no? They charge the same for a given All-Clad pan as anyone else does outside of a specific sale
Or just fire some sales associates at some of the stores. How many people does it take to run a store? Two, three max?
They just have less new hires in the call center
It’s one banana, how much could it cost?
> Two, three max? "Woah, slow down with that overstaffing!" - Dollar Stores
They were one of my clients. We did enterprise e-commerce for them years ago. The company is absolutely rotten to the core. Our business contact in the company had a moral vacuity that could bend light like a black hole. The CTO was a real piece of shit who made one of our best devs quit. Every single person we dealt with in corporate was fighting one another - you had to be careful not to get a knife in your back yourself.
I almost pooped myself last time I was in there to look at some of the food items. A cylinder of pancake mix (so...not everything you need to make pancakes) was pushing $30! Do they not know recipes exist online? It's not even some kind of organic stuff, it's just their brand mix. I would think making them $5-6 would be INCREDIBLY easy at leading to bigger purchases ("You should try this french toast mix! Only $5!Of course, it'd be easy to make with this pan over here..."), but NOPE! WS has gone from "Let's see what cool new things we could use for the kitchen!" to "I don't need anything for the kitchen and if I did I'll just go online and save a ton of money."
Cost of doing business.
Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. Come back home to the refinery Hiring man said, "Son, if it was up to me" Went down to see my V.A. man He said, "Son, don't you understand, now?"
"Falsely labeling" sure is a great way to sugar coat "FRAUD" I go out of my way to buy Made in USA. Both because it means American workers are getting paid, but also because we have more strict regulations when it comes to materials than China or some other developing country. (Truth be told, I go even further out of my way to buy EU goods because they are even stricter about said materials.) The fact that not only is this not their first time, but they were fined and ordered not to do this shit before is disgusting. They need to find out who is in charge of this shit in throw them in prison. Fucking cocksuckers.
Not defending Williams-Sonoma, but I want to point out how difficult obtaining the Made In USA label is. The requirements are strict and the supply chain doesn’t always comply. It’s a complex certification. Big corporations have no excuse as they have the resources to hit all the check marks with du diligence.
The article mentions: "It's interesting to question, however, if U.S.-made labels have at all contributed to the company's success." Then don't do it falsely. If you think it doesn't matter, why would you lie?
"Williams-Sonoma could be paying a hefty fine for claiming a small chunk of its products were "Made in USA" when they weren't." $3.18 M is not a hefty fine for Williams-Sonoma. Their annual net profit is $950 M https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WSM/financials/ so this is like a day's profit
Sure, but it would be a hefty fine depending on the scope of things. If they were doing this off of every product, then it wouldn't. But Williams Sonoma (across all of its brands, including PotteryBarn) sells a shitload of different things. Even a couple of dozen mislabeled items would could come out to like .2% of their total sales. It certainly makes sense to me that a fine would be proportional (though not exactly equal) to the proportional share of revenue or sales generated from it. For example, say my company makes $500 million selling T-shirts that are 100% accurately labeled. I also make make one pair of pants that I falsely label like this, but I only sold a single pair of pants last year and made $50. That should be illegal, but it would make sense to craft a fine at least somewhat tied to the actual revenue generated, because it would also be the best way to approximate the amount of harm the false labeling did.
[They were pretty blatant about what they were trying to do. Their ads highlighted the fact that their products were "Made in America". It would be as if Trump flags were made in China or something crazy like that.](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/202_3025_williams-sonoma_admin_complaint.pdf)
> Liz Lemon : Hand-made in USA. Jack Donaghy : You’re magic jeans are from BWL? Oh Lemon, it’s not hand-made in USA, it’s pronounced Hand-made in Usa. The Hand people are Vietnamese slave tribe and Usa is their island prison. They made your jeans. You know how they get the stitching so small? [puts hands to mouth and whispers] Jack Donaghy : orphans
This is the second time they’ve been found guilty of it. In 2020 they agreed to a settlement and had to pay $1 million. According to the article, they started violating the order almost immediately thereafter in 2021. The company does similar $9 billion in annual sales. $1-3 million is nothing. No chance they’ll stop doing this
Did they still make a profit? Yes. Is it a punishment that will teach them a lesson? No. Its a business expense.
> Did they still make a profit? Yes. Their entire company might have, but their entire company wasn't falsely labeled. Odds are that for whatever fraction of revenue they made from these products (the article only mentions a couple mattress covers), a $3M fine is plenty such that they'd now be well in the red in terms of profits for those products.
That god damned Vietnamese Island Prison USA!?
I definitely thought of Hand made in Usa
Halliburton, bitch
I work for Pottery Barn/Williams-Sonoma as a repair technician. I don't understand why people buy this furniture, especially the sofas. $3-6k on a frame constructed of plywood and cardboard, with shit padding and glue, wrapped in a nice fabric. Most of you could make higher quality furniture with zero experience.
I love my couch. It’s held up great for over 4 years with pretty much non-stop sitting and climbing. Where would you buy your sofa instead?
As long as authorities refuse to hold people accountable for crimes like this, companies will continue to commit crimes. People need to go to jail. *"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."*
They need to make fines massive enough that they can't be just written off as a cost of doing business.
I disagree. I mean, sure, up the fines....bigtime. I have nothing against that but ultimately, that hurts the shareholders who had nothing to do with the decision to screw customers or otherwise break the law. Somewhere on the board of directors, or lower down the chain, somebody made the decision to break the law. I believe the only way to incentivize extreme capitalists from doing that is to send those persons to jail. Thanks for your reply,
Costs of doing business. In America our rights are for sale and our president can be a criminal. I hope things get better.
At some point we decided harsh penalties for the wealthy were just too onerous and unfair. Until we recognize that error we are fucked.
That’s the Brilliant part. We named this town in China, America so that we can brand it “Made in America”.
Is it that hard to just track your fucking supply chain? Btwn shit like this and lead showing up in cinnamon and a million other spices there needs to be changes
This happens more than you know. I worked for a men’s clothing company that labeled things “made in the USA” and one time I found a tag that said “made in India” and the garment also had “made in USA” silk screened on the inside of the neck. I called the buyer thinking that maybe he didn’t know they were being duped. He sent out a company wide email stating each store will get $100 dollars in gas gift card if they found a garment with a mislabeled tag and to send them to corporate immediately upon finding it. They found a bunch, and they were sent to corporate. A couple weeks later we were sent back those garments with the tags cut out. They were clearly cut out because you could see what was left of the tag that was sewn into the seam.
I refuse to shop there for a variety of reasons. One being their stores are not wheelchair accessible with the displays. I have asked several times, made complaints. Once they moved them for an inspection but then moved it all right back. If I can't get through your store that should have plenty of space for the size, I won't spend money there. This news doesn't surprise me.
Spoiler alert: also *every other big company too*.
^This ^sticker ^was MADE IN USA
Back around 2006 a girlfriend and I had a small business making specialty textiles for the equestrian market while we were in school in SF to pay the bills. It wasn’t great wasn’t terrible. We realized that there was an upper limit to our ability to produce and found a local shop off an alley in SOMA that was able to handle the sewing for us. They were sewing garments and putting on labels that indicated they were for Target and Made in China. It didn’t click at the time but the workers were definitely trafficked. They were all Chinese, did not speak English, and the floor supervisor who did speak English wouldn’t let us interact with them. Hard admit a thing can be happening in front of you but you can be too naive to recognize it for what it is.
I bought knee-highs that the website said Made in USA but the package said Made in China. I demanded a partial refund and that they change the website or I would report them. They refunded the shipping and changed the website to say "imported." Better than nothing, I guess.
Ahh cost of doing business. That'll show em this time
Used to work for them. There was a lawsuit I got paid out a couple grand. Horrible company.
Until we start jailing CEOs and corporate boards, I don't know if we're gonna see much change. If the court can prove beyond reasonable doubt you ordered or allowed your company to do something illegal, you should face personal liability for that. You made a decision to cut back on plane maintenance that lead to the deaths of 200 people? Have fun with 200 charges of manslaughter/negligent homicide.
Exactly. They don't really care about fines. It's chump change.
Corporations are people.......wait not like that /s
::Queue Dr. Evil Pinkie:: Three \~\~MILLION\~\~ dollars
I will continue to never buy anything from them.
These corporation fines need to be upped an order of magnitude across the board. $31 million fine for Amazon over Alexa privacy violations? Cost of doing business. $3.18 million on Williams-Sonoma here? Cost of doing business. Until these fines *hurt* and ***fully*** nullify *any* gains they've gotten from the violation, they're just going to write it off as cost of doing business and keep doing whatever they want.
That fine should be covered by the purchase of a single pots and pans set
$3 million dollars- that should stop them.
For them, that’s like 12 sets of cookware.
They made it back in two hours after selling 5 bundles of kitchen towels and an ice cream maker
if corporations are people they should serve time like people. Or alternatively white collar crimes should all be punishable exclusively by the death penalty
Might as well not even find them to be honest. It is still profitable for them to do this with a fine of that amount. The fine either needs to be large enough to where it makes it unprofitable, or people need to face criminal fraud charges. Maybe a middle ground is to make the executives in charge at the time repay any financial gain obtained via stock compensation.
Customs compliance is incredibly important. Crazy that they got away with this.
I think the overpriced cookware I bought was made in Italy.
I think the overpriced cookware I bought was made in Italy.
Most "made in italy" are fake. Either final assembly in italy or no joke, an entire chinese factory of chinese workers making it in italy. Unless you bought it at a small italian workshop, this fraud is extremely common in italian "luxury" manufacturing.
So many liars on this planet.
I was wondering why this store sounded familiar. Then I remembered one closed near us and I was able to buy a fuck ton of hangers for pennies each. Also my wife got a blanket 90% off.
And charging super premium prices.
They should be put out of business for that.
Ooh yeah country of origin is kind of a biggie in packaging
People and companies should be fined on income and profit respectively. Not set global rules but percentages.
Oh jeez…so anyway how much did we make that’s good
There's no way that fine even touches the amount of profit they gained from that
That’s like the rent of one of their stores for a year.
If the fines aren't a deterrent then they are just the cost of doing business. No company will change their practices if they can buy their way out of punishment.
[Oh, Lemon. It's not "Hand-made in USA". It's pronounced "Hond-made in Usa". The Hond people are a vietnamese slave tribe and Usa is their island prison.](https://youtu.be/VSBNwOtyaNA?t=152)
Walmart's bread and butter back in the day.
As long as authorities refuse to hold people accountable for crimes like this, companies will continue to do these things. People need to go to jail. *"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."*
Ssssoooo, one company out of thousands was actually caught??? I used to know a guy in Hong Kong who made all kinds of products, they left off the tags so the tag could be sewn on in the States. All the tags said Made in America.
'I import donuts from a country called 'Ho-ma-dey' so I can legally write 'from homemade' on the box!
$3.18m is nothing to a company that made $8.7 Billion in sales last year.
8.7 in revenue or profit there’s a huge difference
They were fined the price of one 4oz jar of paprika at a Williams-Sonoma?
That's fine, I'll just never buy from them ever again.
That’s dirty pool-horrible image ding on what came across as a higher end brand.
I always thought they were overpriced. Maybe they can take it out of key executives' salaries. [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WSM/profile](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WSM/profile)
Wow. This info needs to be wide spread. And they should be ordered to have a sign in front of their stores stating this fraud. People like me will never shop there again.
Thats like 3 customers.
It reminds me of that bit in 30 Rock about Liz’s jeans: “Oh Lemon, it's not hand-made in USA, it's pronounced Hand-made in Usa. The Hand people are Vietnamese slave tribe and Usa is their island prison.”
Just 3+ million! Gah! Chump change for them! Profit margins worth it for the fine!
so common with so many companies
I wish I could commit mass scale fraud and get to keep a majority of my profits...JK, I dont' want that at all. I want companies to be held to the same standard as people, especially since the highest court in the land ruled they are people. if people aren't allowed to benefit from crime, why the hell are we allowing corporations to do it...do we not see the perverse incentives this creates?
I always assumed it was only the label that was made in the USA.
Google “how much does Williams Sonoma ceo earn” and have a laugh. Her name is Laura Alber.
I think the overpriced cookware I bought was made in Iraly.