US based online contact lens retailer Vision Path, which trades under the name Hubble Contacts, has settled a case brought by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging the company failed to verify patient prescriptions and posted false consumer reviews.
According to the court filing, Hubble failed to ensure customers received contact lenses with the correct prescription and did not actively confer with prescribing practitioners for verification in most customer orders. Instead, the company sent ‘flawed and often incomprehensible’ verification messages to prescribers, and then, when they failed to respond within eight business hours, treated the order as passively verified and sent patients contact lenses they had never been fitted for.
In addition, the company supplied free lenses to consumers that left favourable reviews. In one instance, one of Hubble’s own executives wrote a positive review without disclosing their connection to the company.
The $3.5m (£2.58m) settlement imposed two separate monetary penalties on the company. First, it will have to pay a civil penalty of $1.5m and then $2m in redress to provide refunds to consumers who were harmed by its conduct.
‘Hubble’s business model boosted its bottom line but created needless risk for its customers’ eye health,’ director Samuel Levine, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection.
In a statement issued by Vision Path, CEO Steven Druckman said: ‘The FTC’s allegations relate to a period when the company was just starting up, and all requirements in the order were addressed along ago through improvements to our systems and internal processes.’
