Tong Announces Deal To Help Ripped-off Military Personnel

HARTFORD, CT — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong Thursday announced a $34.2 million settlement among 18 states, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Harris Jewelry to provide refunds and relief to 46,000 servicemembers and veterans deceived and defrauded by the national jewelry retailer.

Tong said the jewelry company used false promises of charity and deceptive marketing ploys to lure active-duty servicemembers to their financing program, falsely claiming that investing in this program would improve service members’ credit scores.

Instead, service members were tricked into obtaining high-interest loans on overpriced, poor-quality jewelry that saddled them with thousands of dollars of debt and worsened their credit, according to Tong.

The agreement requires Harris Jewelry to refund tens of thousands of service members for warranties they were tricked into purchasing, to stop collecting millions of dollars of debt, to correct bad credit scores, and dissolves all of Harris Jewelry’s businesses.

This agreement also requires Harris Jewelry to pay $1 million to all 18 states.

Over 100 Connecticut servicemembers and veterans will receive $128,964.50 in refunds and debt relief, and the State of Connecticut will collect a $50,000 penalty.

“Harris Jewelry preyed on active-duty servicemembers, luring them into bad loans and warranties for overpriced cheap jewelry. Harris Jewelry lied about charitable donations, lied about credit scores, lied about their low-quality products, and scammed American heroes out of millions of dollars," Tong said.

"Our agreement forces them out of business and requires direct refunds and debt relief to tens of thousands of servicemembers. We have begun reaching out to 100 servicemembers and veterans in Connecticut who we know were victims of this egregious scam and are entitled to relief. There may be more. If you were a Harris Jewelry customer, contact our office immediately,” said Tong.

“As a veteran and member of the Army Reserve, I have heard from many victims scammed out of funds, trapped in a cycle of debt because of scams like that perpetrated by Harris Jewelry. My thanks to Attorney General Tong and his staff and to the multistate team co-led by New York and the FTC for their work to recover millions of dollars for members of our military and bring an end to Harris Jewelry and its victimization of our nation’s heroes, the protectors of our freedom and democracy,” said Connecticut Veterans Affairs Commissioner Thomas J. Saadi.

Connecticut consumers who may have been a victim of Harris should file a consumer complaint online (https://www.dir.ct.gov/ag/complaint) and provide the Harris store address and/or town where the store was located, the time frame of purchase and consumer address at the time of purchase.

Harris Jewelry, headquartered in Hauppauge, N.Y., operated retail stores near and on military bases around the country.

Joining the FTC in today’s agreement are the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.

For the full Tong announcement, click on this link.