Zara Hit With $5 Million Lawsuit That Could Result In a Payday for Anyone Who's Ever Shopped There

Zara has been accused of deceptively pricing its products and has been hit with a $5 million lawsuit, according to The Fashion Law.

There are two (less exciting) contextual things you need to know to understand the case. The first is that Zara is accused of baiting and switching customers because the retailer only displays prices in euros. Because prices are in euros, they appear much lower to the American consumer who is lured in by lower numbers but then are charged more at the register once the conversion from euros to dollars has been made. The second point is that, according to the plaintiff Devin Rose, the prices charged in dollars don't match up with actual exchange rates.

Rose uses a purchase he made on May 17 of this year as an example. "The actual euro-dollar exchange rate would have resulted in his €9.95 shirts costing approximately $11.26 each," the lawsuit reads, according to TFL. "Instead, however, Zara charged Mr. Rose $17.90 per garment, a markup of nearly 60%.” The lawsuit claims that the prices are arbitrarily marked up and "on average has caused consumers to pay $5 to $50 more per item, and billions of dollars in the aggregate," according to the suit.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's the really good news: if the lawsuit is certified by the court, anyone who has ever bought anything from Zara could get in on the case and receive a portion of the settlement money. It's like the Ticketmaster free ticket windfall all over again.

Zara representatives told TFL that they "look forward to presenting [their] full defense in due course through the legal process." Read the full statement below.