Fust's 'only today' Sunday Deal ran four weeks — Swiss commission ruled it unfair

On 20 July 2025, Swiss appliance retailer Fust sent a newsletter advertising a portafilter coffee machine as a 'Sonntags-Deal' — a Sunday Deal. The pitch leaned hard on scarcity: 'only today at the absolute best price', 'grab it while stocks last', and prominent 'Buy Now' buttons. The whole design said one day only.

The one day lasted longer. Days after the newsletter, the identical promotion reappeared in a Fust brochure under the same conditions — and kept running for nearly four weeks. The Stiftung für Konsumentenschutz, Switzerland's consumer protection foundation, complained to the Swiss Fair Trading Commission (SLK): a non-existent time limit used to manufacture purchase pressure was misleading advertising under the Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UWG) — in its words, a dark pattern.

On 3 February 2026 the SLK upheld the complaint and ruled the campaign unfair and unlawful: presenting time limits that do not exist misleads consumers and violates the UWG's transparency requirements. Konsumentenschutz called the decision a precedent against fake urgency tactics and said it would pursue flagrant violations.