What is a deceptive trade practice?

No successful California business has a tunnel-vision focus on a sole concern or objective. The principals of any viable enterprise — whether it be a financial firm, auto dealership, retail store or other entity — are necessarily — and always — focused on multi-faceted and integrated objectives.

Those are truly wide ranging, and encompass things like customer identification, asset management, inventory considerations, industry trends and myriad other considerations.

One word jumps to the fore with all those concerns, namely, risk. As we note on the Contract and Business Disputes page of our website at the Pasadena business and commercial law firm of Larson & Gaston, LLP, it is critically important for any business “to minimize risk and drain on resources while protecting assets.”

Among the many sources of risk that we refer to on our website, fraud is a special concern for some businesses. In today’s post, we touch briefly on a very special subset of fraud termed a deceptive trade practice, which can be a singular concern for any business entity that deals with the public by selling products or services.

As noted in an online review of such practices, they are centrally marked “by disinformation, false claims, and other tactics to lure the public” into a buying decision.

Some examples of deceptive business practices are base and obvious. An unscrupulous car dealer might be selling vehicles with odometers showing rolled-back mileage. A good advertized in a magazine might be replaced by an inferior and pricier product inside a store.

It’s not always so blatantly apparent, though. Many businesses can find themselves — and often do — backpedaling in response to fraud-based claims that they actually have a strong legal defense against.

Defending against risk certainly encompasses a company’s purposeful strategy to challenge questionable or tenuous claims against it that can undermine its integrity and business bottom line.

As the above-cited overview states, any business with questions or concerns regarding deceptive trade practices might reasonably want to contact a proven California business attorney for guidance and, when necessary, diligent legal representation.