Courts S'pore automatically added items into online shopping carts without customers' consent

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCS) has found that Courts, an electronics and furniture retailer in Singapore, included a design feature on its website that misled its customers.

The website automatically added items to the shopping carts of online customers, whether or not they wanted to purchase those items.

Courts has since vowed to immediately stop the feature and provide a refund to customers affected by the website feature.

What happened

In a press release on Dec. 8, 2025, the Commission revealed that it investigated the Courts website after a consumer complaint.

It found that Courts was charging customers for items that they did not select.

"During certain promotion periods, Courts’ website automatically added certain items to consumers’ carts without seeking their consent.

For example, an Acer vacuum cleaner was added to a consumer’s cart after that consumer selected an Apple iPad for purchase."

Here is a screenshot of what a customer sees if they want to buy an Apple iPad:

However, once they click "Add to Cart" a vacuum is automatically added to the cart.

The pop-up window notes the addition of the iPad, but not the vacuum, which is "whitewashed" in the background and difficult to see.

The cart total also does not take into account the additional price of the vacuum.

If the customer clicks the shopping cart, the price of the vacuum is added, but it's noted as a "promotional item".

The Commission noted that this website feature put customers at risk if they failed to notice that the extra items were added to their shopping cart before checking out and paying.

However, it noted that free gifts automatically added to shopping carts were not of concern, as the customer did not need to pay for them.

Despite receiving customer complaints about this feature as early as 2024, Courts did not change this feature until the Commission intervened in June 2025.

Courts did not share in the press release the amount in refunds that it has pledged to give to customers affected by the unfair website feature.

Customers who wish to report unfair practices can contact CASE at 6277 5100 (Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5pm) or via https://crdcomplaints.azurewebsites.net/.

Courts' statement

In a statement provided to Mothership, Courts said:

"COURTS confirms that it had been contacted by the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (“CCS”) regarding design features on its website that may have misled consumers.

The issue resulted from legacy marketing practices, which are aligned with COURTS’ promotions in its physical stores, where consumers were offered the option to purchase an additional item at a discounted rate after their purchase of an item.

After being made aware of the issue, COURTS had given an undertaking to CCS to cease this practice immediately. Following which, we have made changes to our website to rectify the issue and processed refunds to all affected customers.

COURTS had been working closely with CCS since June 2025 to resolve the issue. Since September 2025, the issue had been fully rectified, and we have not received any recent customer complaints. We have also reviewed our website thoroughly to ensure all information are accurately displayed, so as to deliver a transparent shopping experience for customers and to minimise confusion.

We regret the impact this incident may have had on our customers and are fully committed to enhancing our consumer protection policies to prevent similar occurrences in the future."

Top image from Google Maps and CCS.