CMA fines Marks Electrical over consumer breach as bigger penalties loom

The CMA has imposed a £720,000 fine on Marks Electrical and ordered the retailer to refund approximately £600,000 to customers.

What went wrong?

Marks Electrical is an online appliance retailer which, alongside the sale of appliances, offers optional services such as recycling old appliances and unwrapping and recycling packaging. The issue at the centre of the CMA’s investigation was that these services were added by default at an additional cost, without customers giving express consent.

This is one of the practices prohibited under UK consumer law and one for which the CMA now has direct enforcement powers. Optional paid-for extras must be actively chosen by consumers; businesses cannot rely on pre-ticked boxes, default selections or other forms of automatic opt-in.

When the CMA began its investigation, Marks Electrical immediately stopped the unlawful practice, engaged constructively with the CMA and ultimately admitted to breaching the law. As a result, it received a 40% reduction in its fine (as did AA Driving School in a drip pricing investigation earlier this year, see here). Without that reduction, the penalty would have been closer to £1.2 million.

The retailer has also been required to refund affected customers, with refunds averaging around £15 per customer.

Larger fines on the horizon

The relatively modest penalties in this case reflect the fact that the investigation arose during the early stages of the CMA's new consumer enforcement regime. The CMA's direct enforcement powers cannot be applied retrospectively, meaning that early cases are likely to involve shorter infringement periods and fewer affected consumers. In this case, the investigation related only to conduct between April and November 2025.

Future investigations are likely to cover longer periods of non-compliance and larger customer populations. Businesses should therefore expect significantly higher penalties where similar conduct continues unchecked.

Key takeaways for businesses

Any optional extras, including recycling services, delivery upgrades, extended warranties, insurance products, and charity donations, require express, active consent from customers.

Businesses should ensure that:

• Optional charges are clearly disclosed before purchase.
• Customers must take a positive action to add an optional extra.
• Checkout journeys make it straightforward to decline additional services.

Examples of positive action include requiring customers to tick a box to add an optional extra or requiring them to make an active choice between accepting and declining the additional service.