The CMA Has Fined Wayfair, Appliances Direct and Gold’s Gym £6 Million. Here Is What It Found.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has fined three businesses a total of £6 million for misleading sales tactics. It used its powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 to impose the penalties, and to secure refunds from Appliances Direct and Gold’s Gym.

All three businesses admitted breaking the law and agreed to settle early with the CMA. That allows the CMA to resolve cases faster and get refunds back to consumers more quickly, and each business received a 40% reduction in its fine.

Wayfair: false time-limited offers

Wayfair must pay a penalty of £4.8 million. According to the CMA, products on its website were advertised through “Daily Deals” and 24-hour “Flash Deals”, alongside messages such as “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” and countdown timers. These implied that customers needed to act quickly to get the best deal.

The CMA’s investigation found that many products remained available at the same price or lower after the stated deadline, which meant the time-limited offer was false. By presenting these as one-day offers, the CMA said, people could have felt pressure to make a quick purchase so as not to lose out.

Appliances Direct: time-limited offers and pre-ticked boxes

For Appliances Direct, the penalty is £1.2 million, plus around £432,000 in refunds to customers affected by opt-ins, with average payouts of £25 per customer.

The CMA found that customers were automatically opted into one or both of two paid services: removing and recycling the customer’s old appliance at the time of delivery, and installing the new appliance on delivery. Under consumer law, businesses must get customers’ express agreement before charging for optional extras. Pre-ticked boxes and other forms of automatic opt-in are not allowed.

The CMA also found that some product pages carried pop-up countdown banners claiming that discounts of £10 to £25 were available for a limited time. The same discount codes appeared repeatedly over many days, which the CMA said could have led customers to be unfairly pressured into buying.

Gold’s Gym: the joining fee

Gold’s Gym, a UK franchise that operates four gyms in London, received a £45,000 fine. The CMA found that it did not include the joining fee in the total price shown to consumers for its annual and Direct Debit memberships, or that the total price was shown in a way that was unclear and unlikely to be seen.

Businesses must show customers the total price, including any mandatory fees, clearly and from the outset. The CMA has ordered Gold’s Gym to refund a total of £9,220 to 726 affected customers, either £50 or £10 each depending on the type of membership bought.

Refunds and the wider enforcement picture

Appliances Direct and Gold’s Gym will contact affected customers about their refunds, and customers do not need to take any action.

In the last 18 months, the CMA has imposed fines of more than £12 million and secured nearly £2.4 million in refunds for customers using its new consumer protection enforcement powers. Since those powers came into force, it has launched investigations across ticketing, gyms, homeware, online reviews and air travel.

Hayley Fletcher, Senior Director for Consumer Protection at the CMA, said that people “should see genuine, accurate prices and offers” and be able to decide for themselves whether they want optional extras.

Fairpatterns detects fake countdown timers, pre-ticked boxes and incomplete price displays automatically across platforms and at scale.