More than a thousand Hawaii service members will receive refunds or have debts cancelled as a result of a multi-state $34.2 million settlement with national retailer Harris Jewelry.
What You Need To Know
The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ Office of Consumer Protection joined an agreement led by the New York Attorney General and Federal Trade Commission on behalf of some 46,000 service members and veterans deceived and defrauded by the jewelry company’s deceptive marketing and financing practices
According to OCP, the company lured active-duty service members to their financing program with the promise that investing in the program would improve their credit scores. Instead, service members were tricked into taking out high-interest loans on overpriced, poor-quality jewelry that left them with high debt and worsened credit
Under the agreement, Harris Jewelry must refund service members for warranties they were tricked into purchasing, stop collecting millions of dollars of debt, correct bad credit scores and dissolve its business
In Hawaii, 918 service members will be refunded a total of $295,068, and 99 other service members will have a total of $145,436 in debt canceled
The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ Office of Consumer Protection joined an agreement led by the New York Attorney General and Federal Trade Commission on behalf of some 46,000 service members and veterans deceived and defrauded by the jewelry company’s deceptive marketing and financing practices.
