Consumer Protection Agency Stops False Claims of Fire Retardant Product

This week, Host Patti Teel and Deputy District Attorney Christina Perkins introduce us to the D.A.'s County Consumer Protection Unit. The local County Consumer Protection Unit mostly deals with consumer complaints from local businesses that falsely advertise or defraud customers. This type of consumer protection is different from most of the typical online, phone, text, and email scams that Scam Squad talks about. You won't want to miss hearing about this great consumer complaint resource. In this episode, the County of Santa Barbara DA’s Consumer Protection Unit won a default judgment against the company, Sun Fire Defense, who were ordered to pay 2.5 million in penalties and 2.5 million dollars in restitution. In an injunction, the company was also ordered to stop making a number of claims which were proven false. Sun Fire Defense claimed that its exterior coating product, SPF 3000, would protect homes from fires and also claimed that the coating could extinguish flames. Experts tested both treated and untreated wood and found that the untreated wood and the treated wood performed about the same. The product also contains chemicals that California law presumes to be hazardous because they are toxic. The false claims were particularly egregious because it triggered people’s fear following the Thomas Fire in December 2017.