Time’s up for fake countdowns: CMA hands out £6 million in fines

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today announced fines totalling £6 million against three businesses for misleading sales tactics, alongside around £440,000 in consumer refunds. The enforcement action targets a range of familiar online selling practices, including false countdown offers, automatically selected paid extras and failing to display mandatory fees clearly upfront.

The action is the latest example of the CMA making use of its strengthened direct consumer enforcement powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA). In the last 18 months, the CMA says it has now imposed more than £12 million in fines and secured nearly £2.4 million in refunds.

What did the CMA find?

The three cases cover different, but increasingly familiar, areas of consumer law compliance:

• Wayfair – false time-limited offers: Wayfair advertised products using “Daily Deals”, 24-hour “Flash Deals” and countdown timers which suggested consumers act quickly to purchase products at the advertised price. However, the CMA found that many products remained available at the same or a lower price after the stated deadline. Wayfair has been fined £4.8 million.

• Appliances Direct – countdown offers and pre-ticked extras: Appliances Direct used pop up countdown banners offering discounts for a supposedly limited period, even though the same discount codes appeared repeatedly over several days. It also automatically opted customers into paid recycling and installation services. The CMA imposed a £1.2 million fine and ordered around £432,000 in refunds for customers affected by the automatic opt-ins.

• Gold’s Gym – mandatory fees: Gold’s Gym failed to include a mandatory joining fee clearly in the total price presented to consumers for its annual and direct debit memberships. It has been fined £45,000 and ordered to refund £9,220 to affected customers.

All three businesses admitted to breaking the law and agreed to settle early, resulting in a 40% reduction in their fines. This continues the pattern seen in recent CMA enforcement action and demonstrates the potentially significant benefit of early engagement and settlement where an infringement is identified.

Pressure selling remains firmly in the spotlight

The most interesting aspect of this round of enforcement is perhaps the action against false time-limited offers. Under the DMCCA, falsely telling consumers that a product will only be available on particular terms (including a particular price) for a limited period to pressure them into an immediate purchasing decision is expressly prohibited and considered an automatically unfair commercial practice.

Countdown clocks and “ending soon” messaging are common features of online customer journeys. The enforcement action is therefore a useful reminder that businesses need to be able to stand behind the urgency they create. If an offer simply restarts when the clock reaches zero, or the same or a better price remains available afterwards, businesses risk attracting the CMA’s attention.

The cases also reinforce messages we have seen from the CMA before (see our previous articles about Marks Electrical and AA Driving School). Optional paid extras require consumers’ express consent, rather than pre-ticked boxes or automatic selection, and the total price, including mandatory fees, must be presented clearly from the outset.

Key takeaways for businesses

With the CMA able to impose penalties of up to 10% of global turnover for breaches of consumer protection law, online sales journeys are no longer an area where businesses can afford to take compliance risks.

Businesses should be checking that:

• time-limited offers and countdown timers reflect a genuine deadline;
• discounts described as temporary do not simply reappear once the stated period expires;
• optional extras require a positive choice from the customer; and
• headline prices include all mandatory charges upfront.

Taken together with the CMA’s other enforcement action this year, the message is increasingly clear: the regulator is scrutinising not only what consumers are told, but also how online purchasing journeys influence the decisions they make.