{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-presses-ftc-to-investigate-alleged-fraud-deceptive-business-practices-at-wedding-website-the-knot", "Grassley Presses FTC to Investigate Alleged Fraud, Deceptive Business Practices at Wedding Website \u201cThe Knot\u201d", "2025-10-22", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "IA", "Chuck Grassley", "G000386", "www.grassley.senate.gov", "grassley", "https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate allegations of fraudulent and deceptive business practices at The Knot, a wedding planning website, after receiving hundreds of reports from whistleblowers, including Iowans. In a follow up letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Grassley outlines the new whistleblower allegations, which include repeated failures to honor contracts, and deliberate attempts at fraud.\n\nSince Grassley first raised the issue to the FTC, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, in March, Grassley\u2019s office has received nearly 200 messages from whistleblowers nationwide reporting misconduct at The Knot.\n\n\u201cThese small businesses allege that The Knot didn\u2019t advertise their businesses on the website as they were contractually required to and the leads they received were largely fake or otherwise lacked legitimacy. Further, they allege that The Knot promised discount pricing but failed to add them to their customers\u2019 bills. In addition, I was also alerted by several small businesses in Iowa who alleged they were also defrauded by The Knot through these fraudulent and deceptive business practices,\u201d Grassley wrote.\n\nAccording to news reports, more than 200 formal complaints have been made to the FTC about alleged fraudulent activity on the Knot and WeddingWire.\n\n\u201cOne small business owner \u2026 contacted a supervisor on The Knot\u2019s customer support team to discuss why her business continued to be advertised in the wrong section of the website and hadn\u2019t received substantive leads \u2026 The small business owner alleges that the supervisor then turned off the call recorder and told her that she should create fake accounts and leave her own business fake reviews to boost the credibility of her profile, which would in turn help her receive a higher number of legitimate leads,\u201d Grassley continued.\n\nAccording to the small business owner, after she contacted customer service about promised discounts, The Knot removed her small business\u2019 profile from its website with no explanation and continued to charge her credit card for advertisement services.\n\n\u201cThey are preying on small businesses who need help growing their audience and promising things that will never happen. They don\u2019t seem to have an issue taking my money but not providing the advertising services they promised in the contract I signed,\u201d said the small business owner, summarizing her experience with The Knot.\n\nThe full text of the letter can be found HERE or below.\n\nOctober 21, 2025\n\nVIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION\n\nThe Honorable Andrew N. Ferguson\n\nChairman\n\nFederal Trade Commission\n\nDear Chairman Ferguson:\n\nOn March 28, 2025, I wrote to you concerning allegations that The Knot, a wedding planning website, defrauded customers and engaged in deceptive business practices.[1] According to whistleblowers and media reports, The Knot promised to advertise their customers\u2019 businesses on The Knot\u2019s website which would lead to them receiving high-quality leads; however, these small businesses allege that The Knot didn\u2019t advertise their businesses on the website as they were contractually required to and the leads they received were largely fake or otherwise lacked legitimacy.[2] Further, they allege that The Knot promised discount pricing, but failed to add them to their customers\u2019 bills.[3] In addition, I was also alerted by several small businesses in Iowa who alleged they were also defrauded by The Knot through these fraudulent and deceptive business practices. In my letter, I asked what steps have been taken to investigate these allegations to determine whether they were accurate, and if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had yet to do so, that it ought to look into them and hold violators accountable.[4] On April 15, 2025, I received your response stating the FTC couldn\u2019t disclose whether or not the agency started an investigation.[5]\n\nAccording to a March 31, 2025, article by The New Yorker, \u201csince 2018, more than two hundred formal complaints have been made about allegedly fraudulent activity on The Knot and WeddingWire\u201d to the FTC.[6] Further, since I sent you my March 28, 2025, letter, my office has received 184 complaints from small businesses across the country alleging The Knot engaged in the misconduct raised in that letter. One small business owner informed my investigative staff that she contacted a supervisor on The Knot\u2019s customer support team to discuss why her business continued to be advertised in the wrong section of the website and hadn\u2019t received substantive leads. The small business owner told my office that the supervisor said she hadn\u2019t received legitimate leads because her small business didn\u2019t have any reviews on the website. The small business owner alleges that the supervisor then turned off the call recorder and told her that she should create fake accounts and leave her own business fake reviews to boost the credibility of her profile which would in turn help her receive a higher number of legitimate leads. The small business owner told my office that she was shocked The Knot\u2019s solution to their failures was to recommend that she commit fraud by scamming potential customers into selecting her business.\n\nThe small business owner informed my investigative staff that after she continuously called The Knot\u2019s customer service line demanding they provide her with the discounts they promised, in September 2025 The Knot removed her small business\u2019 page from The Knot\u2019s website, with no explanation, but still charged her credit card for the advertisement services. The small business owner summarized her experience with The Knot as: \u201cThey are preying on small businesses who need help growing their audience and promising things that will never happen. They don\u2019t seem to have an issue taking my money but not providing the advertising services they promised in the contract I signed.\u201d\n\nThe almost 200 messages I\u2019ve received since I sent you my March 28 letter, along with these new allegations, show they aren\u2019t merely isolated incidents but are instead a nationwide problem that requires investigation. If the FTC is not investigating, I strongly urge it to do so considering the breadth of alleged wrongdoing and its widespread impact. Moreover, to the extent an investigation is done, I would like to know whether or not the allegations have been found to be true and accurate, and the small businesses, including those in Iowa, want to know too.\n\nThank you for your prompt review and responses. If you have any questions, please contact Brian Randolph on my Committee staff at (202) 224-5225.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCharles E. Grassley\n\nChairman\n\nCommittee on the Judiciary\n\nCC: The Honorable Paul S. Atkins\n\nChairman\n\nSecurities and Exchange Commission\n\n[1] Letter from Senator Charles E. Grassley, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary to Mark T. Uyeda, Acting Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission and Andrew N. Ferguson, Chairman, Federal Trade Commission (Mar. 28, 2025) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_sec_ftc_-_the_knot.pdf.\n\n[2] Id.; see Adam Iscoe, Does the Knot Have a \u201cFake Brides\u201d Problem?, The New Yorker (Mar. 31, 2025) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/07/does-the-knot-have-a-fake-brides-problem; Thomas Barrabi, The Knot\u2019s angry vendors dismiss CEO memo as \u2018damage control\u2019 after swindling advertisers allegations, New York Post (Aug. 11, 2023) https://nypost.com/2023/08/11/the-knots-vendors-dismiss-memo-after-alleged-advertiser-swindling/; Alexandra S. Levine and Richard Nieva, How Wedding Giant The Knot Pulled The Veil Over Advertisers\u2019 Eyes, Forbes (Aug. 3, 2023) https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/08/03/the-knot-wedding-whistleblowers-advertisers-fraud/.\n\n[3] Id.\n\n[4] Id.\n\n[5] Letter from Andrew N. Ferguson, Chairman, Federal Trade Commission to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary (Apr. 15, 2025) (on file with Committee staff).\n\n[6] Adam Iscoe, Does the Knot Have a \u201cFake Brides\u201d Problem?, The New Yorker (Mar. 31, 2025) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/07/does-the-knot-have-a-fake-brides-problem.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-presses-ftc-to-investigate-alleged-fraud-deceptive-business-practices-at-wedding-website-the-knot"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3472707942128181, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}