Apple Holiday Gift Card Offer Was ‘Clearly False, Deceptive,’ Alleges Complaint 

Apple was guilty of “clearly false, deceptive, and misleading marketing and advertising” when it offered Apple Store gift card giveaways over Thanksgiving weekend with the purchase of select iPhones, iPads, iMacs and other products (see 1811230026), alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose that seeks class-action status. San Francisco resident Jessica Lee accessed the Apple Store app on her iPhone Cyber Monday and bought a MacBook Air after clicking on a link for the Apple Shopping Event promotion that included the gift-card offer, said the complaint, filed three days after the Cyber Monday offer expired. “To this day, Plaintiff has not received the $200 Gift Card offered by Apple in connection with her purchase,” it said. She’s one of “numerous consumers” throughout the U.S. “who were duped into buying one or more Apple products based on false and misleading offers” for gift cards that Apple “had no intention to actually provide,” in violation of California unfair-competition and false-advertising laws, it said. Apple “knew or recklessly disregarded” that products not eligible for the gift-card offer were “represented to consumers as eligible before their purchase,” it said. Apple “intended” that consumers “rely on these representations, as the representations are made prominently on the multiple pages of the Apple Store app and elsewhere,” it said. Apple didn’t comment.