The starting point is that the Act defines the wrong, so you are not arguing from general principles about honesty in trade.
Two remedies, and they answer different needs
| Route | What it delivers | Who drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer commission under Section 39 | Refund of the price with interest, compensation for loss or injury, punitive damages under the proviso, a corrective advertisement at the advertiser's cost, an order to discontinue the practice, and adequate costs | You, as the person who bought on the strength of the claim |
| Central Consumer Protection Authority under Section 21 | A direction to discontinue or modify the advertisement, a penalty up to ten lakh rupees on the manufacturer or endorser and up to fifty lakh for a subsequent contravention, up to ten lakh on a publisher, and a bar on the endorser for up to one year and up to three years on repetition | The regulator, on a complaint or on its own motion |
| Prosecution under Section 89 | Imprisonment up to two years and fine up to ten lakh rupees for a manufacturer or service provider who causes a false or misleading advertisement prejudicial to consumers, and up to five years and fifty lakh on a subsequent offence | The State, and it is not a route you control |
Most people want their money back, which means the commission. But a complaint to the regulator costs nothing and does not compete with the commission, because Section 100 makes the Act's provisions additional to and not in derogation of any other law. If the advertisement is still running and still catching people, say so to the Authority as well.
The advertiser has to prove the claim, not you
The Central Consumer Protection Authority issued the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022, notified on 9 June 2022 under Section 18 of the Act. They apply to all advertisements regardless of form, format or medium, and to the manufacturer, service provider or trader whose product is advertised as well as to the advertising agency and the endorser. Paragraph 12 requires that all descriptions, claims and comparisons which relate to matters of objectively ascertainable facts shall be capable of substantiation, and shall be produced if the Central Authority requires it. That reverses the instinct most consumers have, which is that they must somehow disprove the claim. They do not. The person who made the claim has to stand it up.
The fine print defence, and why it usually fails
The standard answer to a misleading advertisement complaint is that a disclaimer somewhere qualified the claim. The 2022 guidelines deal with that directly. A disclaimer may expand or clarify a claim or resolve an ambiguity, but it shall not contradict the material claim or the main message conveyed by the advertiser, it shall not hide material information the absence of which makes the advertisement deceptive, and it shall not attempt to correct a misleading claim. It must be in the same language and the same font as the claim, placed prominently and ideally on the same panel as the claim, and where the claim is a voice over the disclaimer must be displayed in sync with it and at the same speed. Paragraph 12 also stops the familiar formulations, providing that an advertisement may not claim guarantees in the form of up to five years or prices from as low as a figure, and must instead state a fixed period or a fixed price.
Influencers and celebrities
An endorsement is not a free pass. Under the guidelines an endorsement must reflect the genuine, reasonably current opinion of the person making it and must be based on adequate information about, or experience with, the product. Where there is a connection between the endorser and the trader or manufacturer that might materially affect the value or credibility of the endorsement, and the audience would not reasonably expect it, that connection has to be fully disclosed. The Act backs this with the penalty and the endorsement bar in Section 21, subject to the defence in Section 21(5) for an endorser who exercised due diligence to verify the veracity of the claims.
What you have to establish for your own money
Inducement. You bought because of what the advertisement said, and the advertisement was untrue in a way that mattered. That means the advertisement itself is the most important document in your file, and it is the one people almost never keep.
- The advertisement, captured with the date and the URL, or the newspaper page, or the packaging photographed on all sides
- The specific words or figures you say were false, identified precisely rather than described in general terms
- The invoice, tying the purchase to a date after the advertisement ran
- What you actually got, evidenced by photographs, a test report or a service record
- Your written demand to the seller and its reply, since a bare denial is useful and a technical explanation is more useful still
- Any published claim about a certification, rating or research finding, so that the substantiation obligation can be put to the advertiser
Screenshot the advertisement on the day you see it, before you buy. Campaigns are pulled, landing pages are edited, and the claim that persuaded you is very often gone by the time you are annoyed enough to act. A complaint that describes the claim from memory is a weak complaint. A complaint that exhibits the claim as it appeared, dated, is a different document.