A Federal District Judge has ruled that ALS Enterprises, the manufacturer of Scent Lok clothing, had falsely claimed that its products were based on “odor eliminating technology” or were “odor eliminating clothing.” Cabela's and Gander Mountain, both of which sell Scent Lok and their own private-label clothing, were also found guilty of deceptive advertising.
According to a statement issue by Scent-Lok, “On a narrow legal issue, the court determined that the word 'eliminate' in some of Scent-Lok's advertisements could only mean eliminate 100% of odor, and therefor some of these advertisements were false.”
The suit was first filed almost three years ago by several hunters who alleged that Scent-Lok's advertisements violated Minnesota's Consumer Fraud Act, The Uniform Decpetive Trade Practices Act and the Unlawful Trade Practices Act.
According to a report in the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, NY, an injunction barring ALS/Scent Lok, Cabela's and Gander Mountain from “further deceptive practices” will be issued.
According to Jim Shephard's on-line “Outdoors Report,” Federal District Court Judge Richard Kyle of Minnesota stated that all advertisements that used the words “odor-eliminating technology,” “odor-eliminating clothing,” “eliminates all types of odor,” “odor elimination,” “remove all odor,” “complete scent elimination,” “scent-free,” “works on 100 percent of your scent 100 percent of the time,” “all human scent,” “odor is eradicated,” and graphics demonstrating that human odor cannot escape the carbon-embedded fabric are all false statements as a matter of law.
