Last night, Bill O’Reilly’s “tip of the day” was about websites that “save you money.” The main recommendation was Overstock.com. Unfortunately for The O’Reilly Factor viewers, the "internet detectives" looking into the site either overlooked or ignored the nearly $7 million fine recently levied against the company for inflating its advertised discounts.

O’Reilly announced:

There’s a website called “Overstock.com” that says it’ll save you money on just about everything. So we asked our internet detectives to check it out. And here’s her assessment: will indeed save you money. Its claims are mostly true. Also, Google.com/shopping can direct you to great deals all over the place – often on Overstock.com. So those two websites – you want to save money on just about anything – that’s where you go. Factor tip of the day: check ‘em out.

Far be it from me to judge what “Its claims are mostly true” exactly means or how Factor viewers are supposed to discern the truth from falsehood. But I do know that any “no spin zone” that’s “looking out for you” worth its salt would have included this piece of information, as reported in the San Jose Mercury News last month:

Discount retailer Overstock.com has been slapped with a $6.8 million fine after the Alameda County Superior Court ruled the company violated California’s false advertising and unlawful business practices by telling consumers they were getting a bigger discount than they were receiving. …The court ruled that Overstock.com displayed reference prices that weren’t based on actual, but similar products and commonly listed original prices based on the highest possible price in order to overstate the amount of savings consumers could get.

At the very least, O'Reilly should have advised viewers to check the prices carefully to make sure they were really getting the advertised discount.

I think O’Reilly’s “internet detective” needs a visit to an Accountability Review Board.

(H/T Gary Weiss)