Thursday Boots: 258 Pricing Violations and What They Mean for California Consumers

Visit Thursday Boots' website today and you'll see it: a field of products all displaying the same pattern — a crossed-out compare-at price, a sale percentage, and a current price. The discounts look deep, sometimes 40%. The sale badge feels urgent. But pull up FakeTag's price history data for Thursday Boots' product catalog, and a different picture emerges. The compare-at prices were never the real prices. Not for a single day.

Across 258 confirmed violations, Thursday Boots' compare-at prices have operated as fictional reference points — numbers manufactured to make the sale price look like a deal, not reflect actual market history. Under California Business and Professions Code § 17501, that's not a clever marketing tactic. It's an illegal pricing practice with real legal consequences.

The Pattern: A Sale That Never Ends

The most common violation for Thursday Boots is what FakeTag classifies as "never-at-original" — a compare-at or "original" price that the product has never actually sold at. The price was listed, the discount was calculated, the sale badge appeared on the product page. But the product was never actually sold at the inflated reference price.

On Thursday Boots' product pages, you'll see pricing structured like this:

• Compare at: $230 (crossed out)
• Sale price: $137
• You save: $93 (40%)

The problem: our price history data shows that the $230 compare-at price was never the actual selling price for the required 90-day window. In many cases, the product launched at or near the $137 sale price — there was never a $230 era to cross out. In others, the product briefly appeared at $230 for a few days before dropping to the permanent sale price. Neither scenario satisfies California's 90-day rule.

The Numbers: 258 Violations in Context

FakeTag currently tracks 412 confirmed pricing violations across 69 retailers. Thursday Boots accounts for 258 of them — 63% of every violation we've detected. No other retailer in our monitoring pool comes close.

The concentration isn't a fluke. Thursday Boots' entire product line appears to be priced using a perpetual compare-at strategy. Where other retailers may have one or two bad actors in their catalog, Thursday Boots' entire online store appears structured around a reference price that doesn't exist in the historical record.

What California Law Says About Thursday Boots' Pricing

California Business and Professions Code § 17501 reads:

The "prevailing market price" is defined under § 17501 as the price at which the product was actually sold in the regular course of business. Listings are not sales. "Was $230" is not a valid former price if the product was never sold at $230.

For Thursday Boots specifically, the violation pattern looks like this:

1. No genuine 90-day window at compare-at price. Price history shows products never operated at the compare-at price for 90 consecutive days in the prior six months.
2. Phantom reference prices. In many cases, the compare-at price is an invented number — the product launched at or near the sale price with no prior higher-priced era.
3. System-wide, not isolated. The pattern spans 258 products across multiple categories (boots, sneakers, dress shoes, accessories), making this a structural pricing strategy, not a per-product error.

Each violation under B&P § 17200 (California's Unfair Competition Law) carries civil penalties up to $2,500 per violation for the first offense. With 258 violations, the exposure is significant — before accounting for class action damages or injunctive relief.

How FakeTag Tracks Compare-At Manipulation

FakeTag runs automated daily scrapes across monitored DTC retailers. For each product, we record:

• Current selling price
• Displayed compare-at / "original" price
• Whether the product is flagged as on-sale
• Price history over time (historical snapshots of what the compare-at price was on previous dates)

From this data, we generate violation flags when:

• A product's compare-at price has been active for 90+ days without a return to that price as the standard (non-sale) price
• Our historical record shows the product was never sold at the compare-at price
• Price comparison data shows the "original" price was inflated beyond any legitimate market value

All 258 Thursday Boots violations were detected this way — no manual reports, no consumer complaints. Purely from timestamped price history data. This makes the evidence set exceptionally clean for legal use: it's a complete, automated, timestamped record of every pricing decision Thursday Boots has made across their monitored catalog.

What This Means for California Consumers

If you purchased from Thursday Boots and saw a "compare at $230" price before buying at $137, you were shown a price representation that appears to violate California pricing law. The discount implied by that compare-at price — the reason you felt the purchase was a good deal — was based on a number that had no legitimate basis in the product's actual price history.

What you can do:

1. Search the violations database. Visit faketag.polsia.app/tracker and look up the product you purchased. If it's flagged, you have documentation.
2. Document your purchase. Screenshot the product page showing the compare-at and sale price. Keep your order confirmation and any email receipts.
3. File a consumer report. Use the report form to add your observation to the FakeTag database. More reports strengthen the evidentiary record.
4. Contact a consumer protection attorney. California consumer protection attorneys routinely handle § 17501 cases, and many work on contingency. If you have evidence of a never-at-original pricing pattern, it's worth a conversation.
5. File with the California AG. Volume of complaints drives enforcement. The California Department of Justice accepts consumer complaints about deceptive advertising at oag.ca.gov.

Precedent: J.C. Penney, Burlington, and the Path Forward

California enforcement of B&P § 17501 is not theoretical. Major retail settlements have validated the statute's bite:

• J.C. Penney: $50 million settlement (2015) for advertising "compare at" prices that were never actual selling prices across hundreds of products
• Burlington Coat Factory: $27.5 million settlement (2020) for systematically using inflated reference prices in California stores

Both cases shared a common feature with Thursday Boots: the compare-at price was structural, not accidental. It appeared across large portions of the catalog. It was maintained over extended periods. And it was detected and documented through price history data, not consumer complaints.

The data exists. The violations are documented. The pattern is systemic. For consumers and attorneys looking at Thursday Boots' pricing practices, the question isn't whether a violation occurred — it's how to use the documented evidence to seek appropriate relief.

For the legal context on compare-at pricing in California, read our full guide to California's 90-Day Pricing Rule. For more case studies, see our analysis of How Fake Sales Work Under B&P § 17501.