The Federal Trade Commission says Lens.com, the online contact lens seller, advertised low prices and then added a mandatory “Taxes & fees” charge that it kept below the visible part of the checkout screen, so that its hidden fees routinely doubled the advertised price. The agency filed suit on October 2, 2026 alongside the attorneys general of Utah and Nevada. The allegations are a complaint, not a court finding.
The FTC puts the cost to consumers at hundreds of millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in federal court in Nevada, asks a judge to stop the practice and to order money to be paid. No judge has ruled on any of it.
A fees line below the visible screen
The FTC’s October 2 announcement describes the mechanic in plain terms. In the agency’s words, Lens.com hides the “Taxes & fees” line item during the checkout process, below the viewable portion of the screen. A shopper who sees an attractive price in a search ad or on the product page could therefore reach the payment step without ever seeing the extra charge that doubles the total.
Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, summed up the allegation in the release: Lens.com advertised one price for contact lenses but charged a substantially higher price at checkout.
The word “routinely” is the FTC’s own, and it describes a pattern the agency says it found across orders, not a measured average price increase. The release does not give a typical advertised price or a typical checkout total.
Why the label matters
The complaint also targets the name of the charge. According to the FTC, the “Taxes & fees” label suggests the money is state sales tax, even though many states exempt contact lenses from sales tax.
Kelley Drye, a law firm whose advertising-law blog summarized the complaint, reports that the filing quotes company representatives describing the charge as “tax recovery charges” and compensation for processing, and that it was imposed even in states without a sales tax or where lenses are exempt. The same summary says the complaint alleges the fee line appeared only below the fold on an intermediate screen that many consumers would never see unless they scrolled, and that in some cases the added charge more than doubled the advertised price.
Who is named and what they want
The FTC’s case page lists the plaintiffs as the FTC, the State of Nevada and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection. The defendants are Lens.com Inc., Speed Commerce LLC and Cary Samourkachian, identified in the release as the company’s owner. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.
The complaint is titled as one for permanent injunction, monetary judgments, civil penalty judgments and other relief. The FTC’s release says only that it sued to stop a long-running deceptive pricing scheme, and neither the release nor the case page states a dollar amount being sought. The Commission voted 2-0 to authorize staff to file the complaint.
The Kelley Drye summary adds two more strands. It says the complaint covers the company’s AutoRefill subscription, alleging that material terms, fees and cancellation procedures were not clearly disclosed before billing information was collected, and that the company advertised “No Hidden Fees” while the added charge was hidden. It also says the complaint alleges Lens.com received thousands of consumer complaints and knew of concerns about hidden fees as early as 2022 without making meaningful changes. Those points are the complaint’s characterization, relayed by a law firm, and none appears in the FTC’s own announcement.
What is not in the record yet
The FTC states that it files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the named defendants are violating or about to violate the law. That standard is lower than the one a court applies at trial, and the sources read for this article include no response from Lens.com, Speed Commerce or Samourkachian.
Nothing in the release or on the case page sets up a refund process. No claims website, deadline or payment is attached to the case, so customers who paid the added charge have no sign-up to complete today.
The release points consumers who want to report a problem to the FTC’s fraud-reporting site, ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The checkout total is where the price is fixed
The case turns on a gap between two numbers on two different screens. A search ad shows a price per box. The checkout total is the figure that ends up on a card statement, and the FTC alleges the difference between them was placed where many shoppers would not scroll.
The AutoRefill claims in the complaint, as Kelley Drye describes them, add a second layer, because a subscription that renews on its own bills again on its own. The pages read for this article give no count of customers enrolled in the program.
The only primary documents are the FTC’s October 2 announcement and the case listing, which links the filed complaint. Until a court rules, the position of the agency and the two states is an allegation, and the company’s position is not on the record in any source read for this article.
Keeping the paperwork when a total looks wrong
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This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the allegations and case details were checked against the FTC’s October 2, 2026 announcement and case page, and the additional complaint details against a Kelley Drye summary.
