CMA fines Wayfair, Appliances Direct and gym operator £6m

The Competition and Markets Authority has fined Wayfair, Appliances Direct and a London operator of Gold’s Gym franchises a combined £6m over misleading sales practices, including false promotional deadlines, automatic charges for extras and unclear membership prices.

All three businesses admitted breaking consumer law and settled their cases early, receiving a 40% reduction in their penalties. The decisions, reported by GOV.UK Business, also require Appliances Direct and the gym operator to repay affected customers.

What happened

Wayfair received the largest penalty, at £4.8m, after the CMA examined how it advertised supposedly short-lived discounts on its website. Its promotions included daily deals and flash offers presented as lasting 24 hours.

Countdown timers and other urgency messages suggested shoppers had little time to secure the advertised price. Investigators found, however, that many products were still available for the same amount, or less, after the deadline had passed.

The regulator concluded that the claimed time limits were false. Presenting the promotions as one-day opportunities could have pushed customers into making purchases quickly rather than taking more time to consider them.

Appliances Direct was fined £1.2m following findings covering both promotional offers and the way customers were signed up for additional services when buying appliances.

Customers were automatically enrolled in one or both of two paid services. One covered the removal and recycling of an old appliance when its replacement arrived; the other covered installation of the new appliance on delivery.

Those services were optional, making the customer’s express agreement necessary before a charge could be made. Consumer law does not permit retailers to obtain that agreement through pre-ticked boxes or other automatic enrolment methods.

The retailer also displayed pop-up countdown banners on some product pages, advertising discounts worth between £10 and £25 as available for a limited period. The CMA found that the same discount codes kept appearing across multiple days.

That repeated availability undermined the urgency conveyed by the banners. The regulator said the presentation could have put unfair pressure on people to buy an appliance before the supposed offer expired.

Appliances Direct must provide around £432,000 in refunds for customers affected by the automatic opt-ins. The expected average repayment is £25 per customer; the refund requirement relates to the additional services rather than the countdown promotions.

Gold’s Gym (UK) Limited received a £45,000 fine over the presentation of membership prices at its four London gyms. The investigation concerned both annual memberships and memberships paid by Direct Debit.

The CMA found that the mandatory joining fee was either missing from the total price presented to prospective members or included in a way that was insufficiently clear and unlikely to be noticed. Compulsory charges must be visible within the total price from the outset, rather than emerging later in the purchase process.

The gym operator must repay £9,220 across 726 affected customers. Each person will receive either £50 or £10, depending on the membership they purchased.

The background

The CMA used powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 to impose the penalties and obtain customer redress. The legislation gives the regulator the ability to fine businesses for consumer protection breaches and secure refunds.

Across the past 18 months, the authority has imposed more than £12m in fines and secured nearly £2.4m in customer refunds using its new enforcement powers. Those figures cover its wider enforcement activity, rather than these three cases alone.

A business that breaches consumer protection law can face a penalty of up to 10% of its worldwide turnover, or £300,000 if that is higher. The same enforcement framework also underpins the turnover-based penalty risks associated with consumer review rules.

The legal requirements involved in the cases span more than one statute. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 prohibit charging consumers for optional goods or services without obtaining their express consent.

For mandatory charges, Section 230(2) of the 2024 Act requires the initial price shown to include all compulsory elements. That obligation is distinct from the consent requirement for services that a customer can choose not to buy.

The Act also prohibits falsely presenting a product, or particular purchase terms, as available only briefly to force an immediate decision. Such conduct is treated as unfair in all circumstances where it deprives consumers of sufficient time or opportunity to make an informed choice.

The cases form part of the CMA’s work on cost-of-living pressures. Since its strengthened powers took effect, it has opened investigations involving ticketing, gyms, homeware, online reviews and air travel.

The London gym business operates independently of Gold’s Gym International, which belongs to RSG Group. The penalty and repayment order concern the UK franchise operator.

What people are saying

Hayley Fletcher, the CMA’s senior director for consumer protection, said customers should be able to rely on the accuracy of prices and promotions and make their own decisions about optional services. She linked those protections to the need for households to manage their budgets carefully.

Fletcher warned businesses that failing to treat customers fairly and comply with consumer law could bring substantial penalties. The CMA also said the three businesses had engaged constructively, and that early settlements help it conclude investigations and obtain repayments more quickly.

What happens next

Appliances Direct and Gold’s Gym will administer the refunds themselves. Affected customers will be contacted by letter or email and do not need to take action to start the process.

Repayments will normally use the original payment method. Where that is not possible, the businesses will use a suitable alternative, which could include sending a cheque.

The penalties follow a separate route from customer compensation. The CMA collects fine payments for HM Treasury and transfers the money to the Consolidated Fund, rather than distributing it to affected shoppers or gym members.

For businesses reviewing their own sales processes, the authority has published guidance on obtaining agreement for optional extras. That guidance addresses the consent requirement at the centre of the Appliances Direct findings.