Penalty Amount
$750,000
The FTC alleged that Vanilla Chip LLC (d/b/a TruHeight) deceptively advertised height-enhancing supplements for children and teens without competent scientific evidence, and used fake employee-written and incentivized 5-star reviews. The proposed settlement requires TruHeight and its principals to pay $750,000, bars false health claims, and prohibits misleading review practices. A $4 million total judgment is partially suspended due to the respondents' inability to pay the full amount.
TruHeight and its principals are ordered to pay $750,000, partially satisfying a $4 million judgment suspended due to inability to pay. They are permanently enjoined from making false or unsubstantiated height and growth claims, and banned from making any health benefit claims without competent and reliable scientific evidence. They are also prohibited from misrepresenting reviewer identity or experience, and from purchasing reviews conditioned on particular sentiment. The order is a consent decree issued by the FTC.
In-house legal teams should review all vendor agreements with marketing agencies, social media management firms, and review platform providers to prohibit incentivized reviews, fake testimonials, and automated bot-generated content. Customer-facing advertising contracts and terms of service should include warranties that all health-related claims are supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence, and that all reviews are genuine and uncompensated. Employee agreements must explicitly ban staff from writing fake reviews of company products, and contracts with third-party review platforms should require full disclosure of any review incentives and prohibit sentiment-conditioned payments.
Entity
Vanilla Chip LLC
Industry
HealthcareOfficial Press Release
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/04/ftc-takes-action-against-truheight-deceptive-unsubstantiated-advertising-supposed-height-enhancing
TruHeight Complaint
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/TruHeight-Complaint.pdf
2423093truheightdecisionandorder
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2423093truheightdecisionandorder.pdf
Federal Trade Commission Enforcement Page
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement
"Vanilla Chip LLC, which does business as TruHeight"
"requires TruHeight and its principals to pay $750,000"
"violated the FTC Act and the agency’s Reviews and Testimonials Rule"
"April 13, 2026"
"Federal Trade Commission"
"Proposed settlement order"
The FTC settled charges with data broker Kochava, Inc. and its subsidiary Collective Data Solutions (CDS) over allegations that they sold precise location data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices without consumer consent, enabling tracking of visits to sensitive locations like reproductive health clinics and places of worship. The settlement prohibits the companies from selling or sharing sensitive location data without affirmative express consumer consent, and imposes compliance requirements including a sensitive location data program, supplier consent assessments, incident reporting, and data retention schedules. No monetary penalty was imposed.
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$140.0M
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$868K
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