Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is urging the Federal Commerce Fee to analyze The Knot Worldwide after his workplace obtained dozens of latest complaints accusing the marriage planning website of defrauding small enterprise homeowners, The Publish has realized.
In a letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson on Tuesday afternoon, Grassley cited The Publish’s unique reporting on allegations of wrongdoing by The Knot – which has been accused of swindling mom-and-pop distributors like DJs and dressmakers for years by allegedly offering pretend or spam buyer leads and failing to ship on the agreed-upon phrases of pricy advert offers.
Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary committee, mentioned his workplace has obtained almost 200 complaints from distributors across the nation since March 28, when he first requested the FTC to look into claims that The Knot had engaged in misleading enterprise practices following a New Yorker expose on the corporate.
“If the FTC just isn’t investigating, I strongly urge it to take action contemplating the breadth of alleged wrongdoing and its widespread influence,” Grassley wrote.
FTC spokesman Joe Simonson confirmed the company had obtained Grassley’s letter.
“We admire Sen. Grassley’s letter and look ahead to speaking to his workers extra about these disturbing allegations,” Simonson mentioned in an announcement.
A spokesperson for The Knot Worldwide mentioned the corporate “doesn’t have interaction in fraudulent or misleading enterprise practices.”
“We’re laser-focused on innovating to assist marriage ceremony professionals develop their companies with high quality leads and assist thousands and thousands of {couples} yearly on their planning journey,” the spokesperson added. “We stay deeply targeted on regularly enhancing our merchandise, assist, and security requirements so each expertise displays the values that constructed our model. Our dedication to the greater than 900,000 small companies and marriage ceremony professionals we serve world wide is stronger than ever.”
Grassley’s letter cited a whistleblower criticism from a small enterprise proprietor who “contacted a supervisor on The Knot’s buyer assist staff to debate why her enterprise continued to be marketed within the fallacious part of the web site and hadn’t obtained substantive leads.” The supervisor allegedly blamed the issue on an absence of buyer critiques.
“The small enterprise proprietor alleges that the supervisor then turned off the decision recorder and advised her that she ought to create pretend accounts and go away her personal enterprise pretend critiques to spice up the credibility of her profile which might in flip assist her obtain a better variety of official leads,” Grassley wrote within the letter.
“The small enterprise proprietor advised my workplace that she was shocked The Knot’s resolution to their failures was to advocate that she commit fraud by scamming potential clients into choosing her enterprise,” the letter continued.
Grassley mentioned that case and different whistleblower complaints “present they aren’t merely remoted incidents however are as an alternative a nationwide downside that requires investigation.”
After repeated complaints to The Knot’s customer support staff, together with calls for that the corporate “present her with the reductions they promised,” the corporate allegedly pulled her enterprise off its web site totally final month however “nonetheless charged her bank card for the commercial companies.”
“The small enterprise proprietor summarized her expertise with The Knot as: “They’re preying on small companies who need assistance rising their viewers and promising issues that can by no means occur. They don’t appear to have a difficulty taking my cash however not offering the promoting companies they promised within the contract I signed,’” the letter mentioned.
Small enterprise homeowners and marriage ceremony trade insiders say they’ve little recourse as a result of The Knot Worldwide – which consists of manufacturers The Knot, WeddingWire, WeddingPro and Hitched, amongst different websites – controls a significant chunk of the planning market.
The corporate has strenuously denied wrongdoing up to now, with former CEO Tim Chi declaring “unequivocally” in an August 2023 memo that the agency doesn’t “tolerate any fraudulent or unethical practices on our platform and in our firm.”
The Publish’s authentic report on the allegations of misleading practices at The Knot cited interviews with jilted marriage ceremony distributors in addition to a trio of former staff – Jennifer Croom Davidson, Cindy Elley and Rachel LaFera – who alleged that former executives on the firm had aggressively silenced their efforts to lift alarms throughout their time there.
“We admire Senator Grassley’s continued advocacy for America’s marriage ceremony trade,” Davidson mentioned in an announcement on behalf of the whistleblowers.
“For too lengthy, the corporate’s legacy model picture has masked systemic failures and emboldened misconduct. It’s time federal authorities raise the veil and produce this group to account,” she added.
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