AG James reminds soldiers to assert refunds from deceptive previous Watertown jewellery store

Mar. 22—WATERTOWN — Condition Lawyer Common Letitia A. James issued a reminder Wednesday that servicemembers and veterans who have been scammed by a countrywide jewelry retail store chain that had a place in the Salmon Operate Mall should really file promises to receive refunds from the Harris Jewellery settlement in advance of an April 15 deadline.

In July, Ms. James came to Watertown to announce that her business, along with the Federal Trade Fee, had reached an settlement with Harris to end its deceptive internet marketing procedures that focused 443 servicemembers and veterans in New York by yourself.

In all, the legal professional typical and the FTC recovered $34.2 million for servicemembers and veterans who were scammed by the jewellery retailer. The arrangement required Harris to present much more than $12 million in refunds for more than 46,000 servicemembers who paid for life time defense plans. Suitable servicemembers and veterans have till April 15 to file a declare on line for a refund.

“I really encourage energetic-responsibility servicemembers and veterans who had been misled by Harris Jewellery to use for a refund from our settlement,” Ms. James stated in a assertion. “This is an possibility for servicemembers and veterans to get the justice they have earned right after currently being defrauded. Our military associates put our safety previously mentioned their have and my business office will proceed to protect them from predatory enterprises.”

Harris workers would advertise with stuffed bears, dressed in fatigues, outside the house storefronts in cities around navy installations. A single Harris site was open from 2014 to April 2021 in Watertown’s Salmon Operate Shopping mall, when it shut down all storefronts simply because of the pandemic. The enterprise continued to operate on-line right up until December of 2021, when it stopped operating its finance plan as aspect of an agreement with the attorney basic. The attorney general investigation into the outlets commenced in 2017, with the 1st lawsuits submitted in 2018.

In accordance to the attorney general, Harris made use of deceptive internet marketing techniques to lure active-obligation servicemembers to their financing program, falsely professing that investing in this plan would enhance servicemembers’ credit rating scores. Rather, servicemembers were tricked into acquiring higher-curiosity loans on overpriced, very poor-good quality jewellery that saddled them with thousands of pounds of debt and worsened their credit rating.

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Ms. James and the FTC co-led an 18-condition agreement that requires Harris to refund tens of 1000’s of servicemembers for warranties they were being tricked into getting, quit gathering tens of millions of dollars of credit card debt, correct poor credit history scores, and dissolve all its companies.

Through the arrangement, Harris has stopped amassing $21,307,229 in exceptional debt held by 13,426 servicemembers. The settlement demanded the jewelry retailer to provide $12,872,493 in refunds to 46,204 servicemembers who paid out for life time defense programs.

Suitable men and women can file a claim on-line on Harris’s web page at www.harrisjewelry.com to attain a refund.