Additional Information for Hubble Contacts

The following describes a government action that has been resolved by either a settlement or a decision by a court or administrative agency. If the matter is being appealed, it will be noted below.

On 6/09/2022, it was announced that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, through his Consumer Protection Division, has secured a deceptive trade practices settlement against Vision Path, Inc.—specifically, its Hubble contact lens business—in state district court in Bexar County, Texas. Hubble will pay $300,000 in civil penalties, $70,000 in attorneys’ fees, and $2,100 in restitution for certain consumers.   

Hubble deceptively marketed its lenses by representing them as “high quality” even though they were manufactured using older technology that many other contact lens companies had moved away from. Furthermore, Hubble failed to verify consumers’ contact lens prescriptions with prescribers before filling orders, a violation of the Contact Lens Prescription Act that resulted in many consumers receiving the wrong contact lenses. When consumers complained, Hubble wrongly blamed the prescribers. 

This Assurance is being entered into by the Parties for the sole purpose of compromising disputed claims without the necessity for protracted and expensive litigation, and this Assurance does not constitute an admission by Respondent of wrongdoing or any violation of law or regulation or of any allegation contained in this Assurance.
  

The following describes a government action that has been resolved by either a settlement or a decision by a court or administrative agency. If the matter is being appealed, it will be noted below.

On 9/01/2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it is sending payments totaling more than $1.9 million to 30,172 consumers nationwide who bought Hubble brand contact lenses from Vision Path, Inc. The FTC alleged that the company substituted its own brand of lenses for those prescribed by the consumers’ eye doctors in violation of the Contact Lens Rule and violated the FTC Act by deceiving consumers about whether their doctors had approved the substitution, among other things. The average refund amount is $63.

Refund checks are being mailed to affected consumers starting 9/01/2022. The deadline for cashing the checks is 90 days from the date they are issued. Consumers who have questions about their refund or who did not get a refund but think they may be eligible, should contact the refund administrator, Epiq, at 1-855-914-4722. 

The Commission never requires consumers to pay money or provide account information to get a refund: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-returning-more-19-million-consumers-nationwide-who-purchased-hubble-contact-lenses-without

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On 1/28/2022, the U.S. Department of Justice, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced that the government will collect $1.5 million in civil penalties and $2 million in consumer redress from online contact lens company Vision Path Inc., dba Hubble Contacts (Hubble), as part of a settlement to resolve allegations that Hubble violated the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act and the FTC’s Contact Lens Rule.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the government alleged that Hubble violated the federal Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act and the FTC’s Contact Lens Rule by selling contact lenses online without taking the steps required to verify the subscriber’s contact lens prescription, improperly substituting Hubble’s own brand of contact lenses for those originally prescribed by consumers’ eye care practitioners and procuring what it falsely portrayed as independent consumer reviews of its products and services. In addition to requiring Hubble to pay civil penalties and consumer redress, the stipulated order entered by the court today requires Hubble to refrain from altering prescriptions to change the brand prescribed, to verify the prescription for contact lens orders submitted without a written prescription, to cease other deceptive practices and to satisfy ongoing recordkeeping, certification and compliance obligations.