{"id":627450,"date":"2026-04-24T08:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627450\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:03:11","slug":"mattress-giant-ordered-to-pay-15m-over-misleading-online-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627450\/","title":{"rendered":"Mattress giant ordered to pay $15m over &#8216;misleading&#8217; online ads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mattress company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/national\/australia-news-online-retailer-emma-sleep-accused-of-misleading-customers-with-pricing\/2b4869dc-d370-4c08-b51d-904b83d99759\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Emma Sleep\">Emma Sleep<\/a> has been ordered to pay a $15 million fine by a federal court after the company admitted to misleading sale advertisements.<\/p>\n<p>German-owned Emma Sleep Pty Ltd, which began in 2013 and operates as an online &#8220;bed-in-a-box&#8221; retailer in Australia, was found to have made false or misleading representations about the sale price of mattresses, bed frames, pillows and sleep accessories.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/8d04ab86-df7e-4087-bbd2-513986b47184.jpeg\"   alt=\"Emma Sleep mattress\"\/>German-owned Emma Sleep Pty Ltd found to have made false or misleading representations about the sale price of products. (Instagram\/@ph.emmasleep)<\/p>\n<p>But \ufeffthe corporate watchdog said 58 of these products had not been for sale at the strikethrough price or without any discount.<\/p>\n<p>The remaining 16 products had &#8220;almost never&#8221; been for sale\ufeff at the strikethrough price without a discount or savings.<\/p>\n<p>The misleading sales were advertised between June 2020 and March 2023.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Emma Sleep&#8217;s website was accessed more than 4.9 million times during this period and over \ufeff243,000 products were sold, resulting in over $134 million in revenue, the ACCC said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Emma Sleep Pty Ltd also admitted that it had made misleading representations that the discount prices were available for a limited time, by using a countdown timer that would reset during a sale campaign, and using phrases such as &#8216;Ending Soon&#8217; when the products continued to be advertised at the same or similar discount,&#8221; the ACCC said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The court found that the conduct arose out of a deliberate marketing strategy and that senior management turned a blind eye to whether it contravened the Australian Consumer Law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The conduct was not inadvertent or caused by a system error.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/2a76a098-cf14-40f7-8a16-7774ba2512b2.jpeg\"   alt=\"Emma Sleep\"\/>The misleading sales were advertised between June 2020 and March 2023.\ufeff (ACCC)<\/p>\n<p>The court found \ufeffEmma Sleep Southeast Asia engaged in the same misleading conduct.<\/p>\n<p>Emma Sleep Pty Ltd was ordered pay a penalty of $7.5 million, and Emma Sleep Southeast Asia Inc to pay $7.5 million.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Emma Sleep companies breached the Australian Consumer Law by making false or misleading representations which gave consumers the impression they were getting a bargain,&#8221; ACCC Commissioner Luke Woodward said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ACCC was concerned that Emma Sleep&#8217;s conduct created a false sense of urgency about the offer by using a countdown timer that reset itself, and by making false claims suggesting to consumers that the sale was ending soon, which to may have pressured them into making a rushed purchase decision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Emma Sleep was also ordered to publish corrective notices and implement a compliance program.<\/p>\n<p>NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mattress company Emma Sleep has been ordered to pay a $15 million fine by a federal court after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-627450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}