Skincare brand Sunday Riley has agreed to settle with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that the company faked reviews on Sephora’s website to boost its sales for almost two years.

However, the agreement between Texas-based Sunday Riley and the FTC doesn’t require that the skincare company admit to writing fake reviews. Rather, the company has promised not to do so in the future.

“The proposed settlement prohibits Sunday Riley from again posting fake reviews, but does not require any refunds to consumers, forfeiture of profits, or admission of wrongdoing,” a spokesperson for FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

In the complaint filed against the company Monday, the FTC alleges that between November 2015 and August 2017, Sunday Riley employees posted fake reviews on Sephora’s website using fake accounts to try to boost sales.

The FTC began to investigate the company after a whistleblower posted on Reddit in October 2018, saying Sunday Riley was faking reviews while they were an employee there. The brand admitted on Instagram at the time that they “did encourage people to post positive reviews at the launch of this product.”

According to the FTC’s complaint, the watchdog investigated the whistleblower’s allegations and found that they were true.

“On multiple occasions between November 2015 and August 2017, Sunday Riley Skincare managers, including Respondent Sunday Riley, posted reviews of Sunday Riley brand cosmetic products on the Sephora website using fake accounts created just for that purpose, or requested that other employees do so,” the complaint read.

In fact, it found that Sunday Riley herself, the CEO and founder of the brand, was directly involved in the scheme.

The company did not return a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.



The complaint alleges that in a July 2016 email, Riley instructed her staff to each create three different accounts on Sephora’s website using different identities and to use VPNs to mask their identities. To do so, she allegedly told employees to make up names, cities, and skin types for these new personas and set up fake email accounts for each one.

