{"id":81759,"date":"2026-05-29T12:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slowtwitch.com\/?p=81759"},"modified":"2026-05-29T12:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:04:11","slug":"specialized-giant-targeted-by-lawsuits-over-online-purchase-junk-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/industry\/specialized-giant-targeted-by-lawsuits-over-online-purchase-junk-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Specialized, Giant Targeted By Lawsuits Over Online Purchase Junk Fees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Two of the biggest brands in bikes have been targeted by separate lawsuits, claiming that customers were charged so-called “junk fees” in the process of purchasing items on their respective websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Specialized Bicycle and Giant Bicycle were sued in U.S. federal court over the fees, which the separate suits claim are a violation of a 2024 California law that eliminates “junk” or “drip” fees. Specialized settled its case out of court this week, whereas Giant’s case continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known colloquially as the \u201cHonest Pricing Law\u201d or \u201cHidden Fees Statute,\u201d SB 478 “makes it illegal for most businesses to advertise or list a price for a good or service that does not include all required fees or charges other than certain government taxes and shipping costs.<\/a>” Those fees exempted include those from restaurants, state or local sales tax, and\/or a “reasonable” shipping cost for physical goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plaintiff Christopher Rossow sued Specialized in February 2026, alleging that the Specialized e-commerce website did not show all of the fees that he would be charged for a purchase until after he had submitted his credit card information and address. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, according to Rossow’s claim, “consumers are quoted an artificially low price, only for Defendant to sneak in a mandatory \u201cShipping & Handling\u201d fee (the \u201cFee\u201d) regardless of whether the consumer selects the \u201cShip to Home\u201d or \u201cPickup from Store\u201d option. For e-bike purchases, Defendant additionally charges a $15.00 \u201cEnvironmental Recycling Fee\u201d (the \u201cRecycling Fee\u201d)\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0consumers input all their shipping and credit card information. This cheap trick has enabled Defendant to swindle substantial sums of money from its customers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Bronson Thomas sued Giant in February for a purchase made through Giant’s e-commerce website. Thomas claimed that he had bought a Giant bike and accessories through the website, and that in the process Giant “subtly added a ‘Destination fee’ of $75.00 to the checkout screen. The fee was mandatory because Plaintiff could not purchase the products from Defendant\u2019s Website without paying the fee. Plaintiff was charged this fee even though he selected to pick up his items from the store.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both suits were filed in California federal district courts, and both plaintiffs were represented by the same attorney: Stefan Bogdanovich of Bursor & Fisher<\/a>, a firm that specializes in class-action lawsuits. Both claims against Specialized and Giant had been filed as class-action suits. Specialized settled before the class could be certified. The Giant case, meanwhile, continues; in an order dated May 18th<\/a>, Giant is required to respond to the complaint by June 17th. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Specialized nor Giant have commented on the cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attempting to re-create the conditions claimed in the suits had surprising results. On both websites, I attempted to purchase either a Shiv or Trinity. On Specialized’s site, I could only purchase a Shiv as a frame. The listed price of the frame is $6,149. Regardless of whether I chose to have the bike shipped to my home, or to pick it up in a store, a $75 fee was added to the purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Similarly, on Giant’s site, I went to purchase an MSRP Trinity Advanced SL 2 for $9,900. Yet after you’ve added the item to your cart, then go to make your purchase, there’s a surprise $75 fee awaiting you. It is labelled as a shipping fee, with the explanation that the “Shipping Fee reflects costs incurred in transportation, logistics, and other associated fees. The shipping fee is non-refundable or negotiable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The suits claim both brands charged so-called “junk fees” during the process of checking out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":75653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"15","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"10084582","discourse_permalink":"https:\/\/forum.slowtwitch.com\/t\/specialized-giant-targeted-by-lawsuits-over-online-purchase-junk-fees\/1298468","wpdc_publishing_response":"success","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[300,2014,629],"class_list":["post-81759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry","tag-giant","tag-legal","tag-specialized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81767,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81759\/revisions\/81767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowtwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}