Yume Group's mask ads hid the fees behind a '5 days only' price

Yume Group, a Japanese mail-order company, ran newspaper ads as the pandemic began: a '3D Mask 30-Piece Set' for 3,600 yen (tax excluded), with 'today's ad validity period: 5 days'. Regional editions ran between 13 March and 26 April 2020 — from Hokkaido to Kyushu and Okinawa — offering, in the middle of the mask shortage, a set at the advertised price with no extra costs implied.

Neither claim held up. Buyers paid the 3,600 yen plus shipping and handling fees the ads never mentioned, and the same sets stayed available on identical terms after the five-day window had passed. The Consumer Affairs Agency treated the ads as misleading representations of advantageous terms; Saitama Prefecture had already issued a measure order against the same displays on 11 June 2020.

On 21 March 2025 the CAA ordered Yume Group to pay a surcharge of 65,890,000 yen — 3% of the 2,196,628,642 yen in mask-set sales recorded during the violation periods, payable by 22 October 2025. The number reflected the moment: the spring-2020 mask shortage turned a newspaper ad into a ¥2.2 billion run, and the surcharge regime turned the ads' framing into a bill.