Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate The Knot Worldwide after his office received dozens of new complaints accusing the wedding planning site of defrauding small business owners, The Post has learned.
In a letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson on Tuesday afternoon, Grassley cited The Post’s exclusive reporting on allegations of wrongdoing by The Knot – which has been accused of swindling mom-and-pop vendors like DJs and dressmakers for years by allegedly providing fake or spam customer leads and failing to deliver on the agreed-upon terms of expensive ad deals.
Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary committee, said his office has received nearly 200 complaints from vendors around the country since March 28, when he first asked the FTC to look into claims that The Knot had engaged in deceptive business practices following a New Yorker expose on the company.
“If the FTC is not investigating, I strongly urge it to do so considering the breadth of alleged wrongdoing and its widespread impact,” Grassley wrote.
FTC spokesman Joe Simonson confirmed the agency had received Grassley’s letter.
“We appreciate Sen. Grassley’s letter and look forward to talking to his staff more about these disturbing allegations,” Simonson said in a statement.
A spokesperson for The Knot Worldwide said the company “does not engage in fraudulent or deceptive business practices.”
“We are laser-focused on innovating to help wedding professionals grow their businesses with quality leads and support millions of couples annually on their planning journey,” the spokesperson added. “We remain deeply focused on continually enhancing our products, support, and safety standards so every experience reflects the values that built our brand. Our commitment to the more than 900,000 small businesses and wedding professionals we serve around the world is stronger than ever.”
Grassley’s letter cited a whistleblower complaint from a small business owner who “contacted a supervisor on The Knot’s customer support team to discuss why her business continued to be advertised in the wrong section of the website and hadn’t received substantive leads.” The supervisor allegedly blamed the problem on a lack of customer reviews.
“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,” Grassley wrote in the letter.
“The small business owner told my office that she was shocked The Knot’s solution to their failures was to recommend that she commit fraud by scamming potential customers into selecting her business,” the letter continued.
Grassley said that case and other whistleblower complaints “show they aren’t merely isolated incidents but are instead a nationwide problem that requires investigation.”
After repeated complaints to The Knot’s customer service team, including demands that the company “provide her with the discounts they promised,” the company allegedly pulled her business off its website entirely last month but “still charged her credit card for the advertisement services.”
“The small business owner summarized her experience with The Knot as: “They are preying on small businesses who need help growing their audience and promising things that will never happen. They don’t seem to have an issue taking my money but not providing the advertising services they promised in the contract I signed,’” the letter said.
Small business owners and wedding industry insiders say they have little recourse because The Knot Worldwide – which consists of brands The Knot, WeddingWire, WeddingPro and Hitched, among other sites – controls a major chunk of the planning marketplace.
The company has strenuously denied wrongdoing in the past, with former CEO Tim Chi declaring “unequivocally” in an August 2023 memo that the firm doesn’t “tolerate any fraudulent or unethical practices on our platform and in our company.”
The Post’s original report on the allegations of deceptive practices at The Knot cited interviews with jilted wedding vendors as well as a trio of former employees – Jennifer Croom Davidson, Cindy Elley and Rachel LaFera – who alleged that former executives at the company had aggressively silenced their efforts to raise alarms during their time there.
“We appreciate Senator Grassley’s continued advocacy for America’s wedding industry,” Davidson said in a statement on behalf of the whistleblowers.
“For too long, the company’s legacy brand image has masked systemic failures and emboldened misconduct. It’s time federal authorities lift the veil and bring this organization to account,” she added.
