Fashion Nova Lawsuit: FTC, Accessibility, and Pricing Settlements

Fashion Nova lawsuits have produced more than $20 million in paid or proposed settlements since 2020, covering hidden negative reviews, late shipments, an inaccessible website, deceptive “limited-time” pricing, unwanted marketing texts, and the wages paid to the workers who sew its clothes. Some of those cases are closed and the refund windows have shut. Others are still moving through court in 2026, and a couple could still put money or vouchers in the hands of past customers.

FTC Case Over Hidden Negative Reviews

The Federal Trade Commission announced in January 2022 that Fashion Nova would pay $4.2 million to settle allegations it suppressed negative customer reviews. According to the agency, a third-party review tool automatically posted four- and five-star reviews while sending lower-rated reviews into a manual queue, and from late 2015 through November 2019 the company failed to post hundreds of thousands of those lower-rated reviews. The FTC called it the first federal enforcement action against a company for hiding negative reviews.¹

The final consent order, entered in March 2022, bars Fashion Nova from suppressing reviews and requires it to post all reviews for products it currently sells, with narrow carve-outs for content that is obscene, racist, or unrelated to the product. Fashion Nova denied wrongdoing and blamed the third-party software.²³

If you are looking for a refund from this case, you are too late. The claims window ran from May 2023 to August 15, 2023, and in January 2025 the FTC sent 148,351 payments totaling nearly $2.4 million through checks and PayPal. Checks had to be cashed within 90 days and PayPal payments redeemed within 30. New claims are no longer being accepted.⁴⁵

FTC Case Over Late Shipments and Gift-Card Refunds

Two years before the reviews case, Fashion Nova agreed in April 2020 to pay $9.3 million to settle a separate FTC action under the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule. The FTC alleged the retailer advertised fast shipping but routinely failed to deliver on time, failed to notify customers of delays, and illegally handed out store gift cards instead of cash refunds for merchandise that never shipped.⁶

Under the order, $7.04 million went to the FTC for agency-led consumer refunds and Fashion Nova refunded $2.26 million directly. The company also had to start shipping all orders within one business day when no specific shipping date is listed at checkout, a tighter rule than the 30-day default. That one-business-day standard is why current Fashion Nova orders move as quickly as they do.⁶

California District Attorneys’ $1.75 Million Settlement

Related shipping problems drew a separate action from the district attorneys of Los Angeles, Alameda, Napa, and Sonoma counties, filed in Alameda County Superior Court. The DAs alleged that at least through April 2018 Fashion Nova repeatedly failed to ship within 30 days, failed to send the delay notices California law requires, and did not adequately disclose its return policy.⁷

Announced in December 2019, the settlement totaled $1.75 million: $1.5 million in civil penalties, costs, and other payments, and roughly $250,000 in direct restitution. Fashion Nova did not admit wrongdoing.⁸

Deceptive Pricing Voucher Settlement (Still Live in 2026)

If you bought from Fashion Nova with a California, Oregon, or Washington billing address between September 17, 2018, and May 20, 2025, a pending class action settlement may send you a $12 voucher automatically. The case, Dembiczak et al. v. Fashion Nova, LLC (No. 25CU032047N), was filed in San Diego County Superior Court. The plaintiffs allege Fashion Nova advertised sale prices as limited-time offers when those prices kept running past the deadline, and inflated the “regular” prices used as the discount baseline.⁹

The proposed vouchers are stackable, transferable, and valid for three years at fashionnova.com. Fashion Nova would separately pay class counsel Dovel & Luner up to $4.2 million in fees. Fashion Nova denies the allegations, and no court has ruled on the merits.⁹

Final approval was originally scheduled for February 27, 2026, but was pushed to May 1, 2026, after the court ordered supplemental notice to class members who had not received the first mailing. The extended objection deadline was April 11, 2026. Voucher distribution has not yet started.¹⁰

Website Accessibility Class Action for Blind Users

A 2020 class action in the Northern District of California, Alcazar v. Fashion Nova, Inc. (No. 4:20-cv-01434-JST), alleged that fashionnova.com is unusable for legally blind people who rely on screen-reading software, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court certified the class in September 2022.¹¹

After five years of litigation the parties proposed a $5.15 million settlement, with up to $4,000 per household for eligible California class members who filed a valid claim by October 20, 2025, an accessibility commitment for the website, and leftover funds going to the American Foundation for the Blind.¹²

The U.S. Department of Justice tried to block the deal. In an 18-page Statement of Interest filed February 2, 2026, the DOJ argued the settlement “would afford little value to consumers with vision disabilities while generously compensating attorneys,” calling the injunctive relief “generic and weakly enforceable” with no compliance monitoring and no way for class members to review the required accessibility policy. The DOJ also noted the settlement gave no money to nationwide class members outside California, and pointed out that the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ own settlement website was itself inaccessible, relying on a “Userway Overlay” instead of genuine accessibility design.¹³

A final approval hearing was set for February 12, 2026. As of the most recent available updates in early 2026, no public reporting confirmed whether the hearing was held or how the court ruled. The DOJ case page still listed the matter as pending, last updated February 6, 2026.¹¹

Unwanted Text Messages and “Urgent” Sale Emails

Fashion Nova has been sued repeatedly over its marketing messages. In Richards v. Fashion Nova (No. 1:25-CV-01145, S.D. Ind.), the court granted the company’s motion to dismiss in March 2026, holding that under a strict textualist reading of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a text message is not a “telephone call” for purposes of the Do Not Call Registry provisions, because text messaging did not exist when the TCPA was enacted in 1991. Whether texts count as “calls” under the statute is currently pending before the Seventh Circuit in a separate case.¹⁴

A newer TCPA suit, Shavies v. Fashion Nova, Inc. (No. 3:26-cv-03523, N.D. Cal.), was filed in April 2026. The plaintiff says the company sent eight promotional texts between 7:24 and 7:32 a.m. Pacific during the summer of 2025, violating federal quiet-hours rules that bar calls and texts before 8 a.m. local time. The case is early; no class has been certified.¹⁵

Emails are next. On April 24, 2026, Karina Revenko filed a class action in Clark County Superior Court in Washington accusing Fashion Nova of sending marketing emails with subject lines announcing sales that were ending or expiring, then routinely extending those sales. The suit cites Washington’s Commercial Electronic Mail Act and Consumer Protection Act and asks for $500 per violation for Washington residents who received such emails in the previous four years. Fashion Nova had not yet responded as of late April 2026.¹⁶

Wages Paid to Garment Workers

Fashion Nova’s Los Angeles supply chain has drawn separate scrutiny. A 2019 New York Times investigation reported that the U.S. Department of Labor had found numerous Fashion Nova garments made domestically by workers paid “illegally low wages,” often off the books, many of them undocumented and unlikely to file complaints.¹⁷

California labor investigations between 2016 and 2019 linked Fashion Nova production to roughly 50 open wage-theft cases and about $3.8 million in back wages owed. In 10 specific cases assessed by the state Labor Commissioner, workers were awarded about $409,600, of which roughly 94 percent remained unpaid at the time of reporting. Fashion Nova’s general counsel said the brand “is not responsible for how these vendors handle their payrolls,” arguing the company is a retailer rather than a manufacturer.¹⁸ A Department of Labor spokesperson said in December 2019 that there was no active federal investigation of Fashion Nova itself at that time, and the company said all 700-plus of its vendors had signed agreements to comply with California labor law, with a six-month probation for a first violation and suspension for a second.¹⁹

California enacted SB 62, the Garment Worker Protection Act, in September 2021, effective January 1, 2022. It makes “brand guarantors” that contract for garment manufacturing jointly liable for unpaid wages, bars piece-rate pay, and requires brands to keep production records for four years.²⁰ No public SB 62 enforcement actions against Fashion Nova have been reported.

Design Copying Lawsuits

Fashion Nova has been repeatedly accused of copying other designers’ work. Versace filed a copyright and trademark suit in November 2019 in the Central District of California, alleging Fashion Nova reproduced two of its dress prints, including the jungle-print dress worn by Jennifer Lopez, in what Versace called “a deliberate effort to exploit the popularity and renown of Versace’s signature designs.” The parties settled in July 2021, days before trial, with terms undisclosed.²¹²²

Playboy filed its own trademark and copyright suit in October 2020 (No. 2:20-cv-09846, C.D. Cal.) over Fashion Nova’s bunny costumes and “Bunny of the Month” branding, which Playboy said echoed its “Playmate of the Month” trademark. That case ended in a November 2021 dismissal with prejudice on undisclosed terms.²³

Independent designers have made similar accusations. In 2022, luxury brand Hanifa said Fashion Nova had copied its $459 “Jax Knit Gown” as a $49.99 version, and Fashion Nova pulled the item after the designer posted about the resemblance. Designer Destiney Bleu accused the company of replicating her bedazzled bodysuit and lingerie designs. According to the Versace complaint, Fashion Nova had been sued by designers for infringement at least eight times since 2013.²⁴²¹

Competitor Antitrust Suit

Competitor Honey Bum sued Fashion Nova and CEO Richard Saghian under the Sherman Act and California business tort law, alleging a “group boycott” in which Fashion Nova pressured clothing vendors to stop supplying Honey Bum. In March 2023, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Fashion Nova in Honey Bum, LLC v. Fashion Nova, Inc. (No. 22-55150), finding no evidence of the required horizontal agreement among vendors and no independent wrongfulness for the tort claims.²⁵

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