RainSoft lawsuits stretch back three decades and follow a consistent pattern: allegations that the company’s authorized dealers use misleading in-home water tests, high-pressure sales pitches, and aggressive telemarketing to sell expensive water treatment systems, often inside Home Depot stores. The disputes have produced a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling in 2025, a pending federal telemarketing class action in Florida, an earlier deceptive-practices class action, a defamation suit the company filed and lost against a consumer blogger, and a 1996 enforcement action by a California district attorney.
How RainSoft Is Sold
RainSoft is a brand of Aquion, Inc., which was acquired by Pentair in 2019. Its water softeners and reverse osmosis systems are sold primarily through authorized dealers who operate inside Home Depot retail locations under the “Home Depot Home Services” banner.1Aquion, Inc. Aquion Corporate Site That dealer-inside-a-retailer structure sits at the center of most of the litigation, because plaintiffs have repeatedly named Home Depot as a co-defendant alongside the dealer and Aquion.
Jackson v. Home Depot: The Referral Sales Case
The highest-profile active case is Jackson v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., which reached the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2025. Plaintiff George Jackson bought a RainSoft system in 2014 and alleged that Home Depot and its authorized service provider, Carolina Water Systems, ran an illegal referral sales promotion. Under the promotion, buyers could get money back — potentially a full refund — for referring new prospective customers to the sales agents.2FindLaw. Jackson v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc.
North Carolina’s referral statute prohibits sales promotions where rebates or price reductions depend on the buyer referring more customers. Jackson asked the court to void the contracts, refund all money paid, and award damages under the state’s unfair and deceptive trade practices law. The proposed class covered everyone who bought a RainSoft system from the defendants between November 2012 and November 2016.3Ellis & Winters LLP. NC Supreme Court Refines Predominance Requirement in Multi-State Class Action
On August 22, 2025, the North Carolina Supreme Court vacated the trial court’s class certification order and remanded. Writing for the majority, Justice Richard Dietz held that under North Carolina’s referral statute a plaintiff does not have to prove they were personally “induced” by the referral program. The promotion is unlawful whether or not the buyer even knew about it.4North Carolina Courts. Jackson v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc.
That was a win for Jackson on the legal question, but the certified class collapsed because it included South Carolina residents. South Carolina’s referral statute expressly requires proof of inducement, so each South Carolina class member would need an individual determination of whether the referral program actually influenced their purchase. That state-law conflict defeated the “predominance” requirement for a single class. The court also flagged two additional problems the trial court will have to work through: whether the statute’s requirement that buyers “tender” (return) their water systems is feasible a decade after purchase, and whether proving actual damages under the unfair trade practices claim requires so many individual inquiries that a class action becomes unworkable. Chief Justice Newby dissented, arguing that inducement is in fact an element of the North Carolina statute.2FindLaw. Jackson v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc.
The case is back before the trial court, where Jackson can try to recertify a narrower class.
Harrell v. Aquion: Telemarketing Class Action
A federal class action filed in October 2023 targets the telemarketing behind RainSoft sales. In Harrell v. Aquion, Inc. et al., Case No. 3:23-cv-01222, plaintiff Elizabeth Harrell sued Aquion (doing business as RainSoft), Home Depot U.S.A., and A & B Marketing, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.5ClassAction.org. Harrell v. Aquion, Inc. et al., Complaint
A & B Marketing is the exclusive RainSoft distributor in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia, headquartered in Jacksonville. It operates inside Home Depot stores, using end-aisle displays to get consumers to complete water quality surveys on an iPad app. According to the complaint, the surveys contain intentionally small-print disclosures designed to trick consumers into consenting to telemarketing contact.
Harrell says that after she filled out one of these surveys at a Home Depot in April 2023, she received an unsolicited text from “Home Depot Home Services,” even though her phone number had been on the National Do Not Call Registry since 2016. She replied “STOP” to opt out, then received four more telemarketing calls from A & B Marketing in May 2023 pushing an in-home water test.6ClassAction.org. Home Depot, RainSoft Facing Class Action Over Alleged Spam Texts, Calls
The suit proposes two classes reaching back to October 17, 2019: one for people who received repeated calls while listed on the National Do Not Call Registry, and one for people who received calls after opting out. It seeks statutory damages of up to $500 per violation and up to $1,500 per willful violation.5ClassAction.org. Harrell v. Aquion, Inc. et al., Complaint
A key question is whether Home Depot can be held liable for calls placed by a third-party dealer. The complaint relies on a 2013 FCC ruling that companies cannot escape TCPA liability by outsourcing telemarketing to independent contractors. Harrell argues Home Depot approves these dealers, lets them use the Home Depot name, benefits financially from the system sales, offers financing for purchases, and was already on notice of the practice through an earlier class action, La Stella v. Aquion, Inc. et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-00090-TKW-HTC. The case remains pending.
The Deceptive Water Testing Class Action
A separate Florida class action, brought by the law firm Taylor, Warren & Weidner, went at the in-home water test itself. The complaint alleged that salespeople working out of Home Depot stores offered gift cards to collect consumers’ contact information, then scheduled in-home visits where they added a chemical to a glass of tap water and produced a dramatic color change. The demonstration, plaintiffs said, was designed to frighten homeowners into believing their water was unsafe, when in fact it only detected common minerals found in most tap and spring water. The test, they argued, was a scare tactic to sell expensive systems that homeowners did not need.7Local Pulse. Court Finds Sufficient Allegations of Unfair and Deceptive Water Testing in RainSoft Class Action
All three defendants — the manufacturer, the dealer, and Home Depot — moved to dismiss. In a 2018 ruling, the court denied those motions, finding that the plaintiffs’ unfair and deceptive conduct allegations under Florida law were sufficient to proceed. The opinion also noted that the Florida Attorney General’s Office had published consumer warnings about deceptive in-home water testing schemes.
RainSoft v. MacFarland: The Company Sues a Blogger
RainSoft has been a plaintiff as well as a defendant. After consumer blogger Brian MacFarland, who runs the personal finance site lazymanandmoney.com, attended an in-home RainSoft presentation, he published posts with titles like “Is Home Depot’s Water Test from RainSoft a Scam” and “RainSoft Scam? (Part 2).” He called the sales pitch a “magic show” and described the company’s practices as “shady” and “slightly deceptive.”8Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog. Blogger Defeats Defamation Claims Over Posts Claiming a Scam
RainSoft sued MacFarland in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, alleging defamation and false advertising under the Lanham Act. In September 2018, the court granted summary judgment to MacFarland on both counts. On defamation, the judge ruled that words like “scam” and “magic trick” were “imaginative expression and rhetorical hyperbole” protected by the First Amendment, writing that “there is no such thing as a false idea.” On the Lanham Act claim, the court held that MacFarland’s blog posts were not “commercial advertising”; the only thing he offered readers was free advice, and any income from ads or affiliate links was incidental to his consumer-information purpose.
The 1996 Ventura County Enforcement Action
The earliest documented action goes back to November 1995, when the Ventura County District Attorney’s office in California sued Coastal Cities Water Treatment Inc., a company that sold RainSoft devices. Prosecutors accused the firm of unfair business practices and misleading advertising, alleging that employees alarmed customers about their water quality and pressured them into buying $4,450 water treatment systems. The complaint also alleged that staff concealed the limitations of the water tests used in sales pitches and, in some cases, sold non-RainSoft substitutes while representing them as genuine RainSoft products.9Los Angeles Times. Water Treatment Firm to Pay $50,000 Fine
In April 1996, Coastal Cities settled by agreeing to pay a $50,000 fine without admitting wrongdoing. Five thousand dollars of that went to a fund for Ventura County libraries. Nine customers who were reportedly pressured into contracts were given a chance to cancel, and the district attorney’s office began arranging restitution for customers sold non-RainSoft substitutes. Company president Mitch Cohen said the firm had served 3,600 customers over ten years and had received only nine formal complaints, and that Coastal Cities settled because it “couldn’t afford to go to trial.”
What Ties the Cases Together
Across three decades, the RainSoft cases share a set of complaints. Plaintiffs and prosecutors have repeatedly alleged that the dealer network uses misleading in-home demonstrations to exaggerate water quality problems, applies high-pressure tactics to close expensive sales, and continues to contact consumers after they ask to be left alone. Home Depot’s role as the storefront through which dealers recruit customers has made it a co-defendant in most of the modern cases, with plaintiffs arguing the retailer cannot separate itself from conduct carried out under its brand name and inside its stores. As of late 2025, the Jackson referral case is back in the North Carolina trial court for a possible narrower class, and the Harrell TCPA case remains pending in Florida federal court.