Is altering the manufacture date of anything a fraud?
<p>Today I bought a cordless drill from Amazon. I immediately noticed something weird: on the label, under the inevitable "made in china" text, there is what looks like a manufacturing date. However, it's wrong because it reads "2018-12". Assuming the possibility of it coming from the future is unlikely to say the least, it might have been made on purpose.</p>

<p>Why would they do that? I think it could be in case they weren't able to sell that unit, so that they could pretend it is newer than it really is. This might be unpleasant for the customer, expecially considering the aging that the included lithium batteries are subject to.</p>

<p>My question is: is this behaviour by the manufacturer illegal? What should I do now?</p>

<p>It may be illegal under product labelling regulations that apply to that kind of product (or under a general deceptive trade practices act), but even then, only if you are interpreting the numbers, whose meaning is not clearly spelled out, correctly.</p>

<p>But, to be actionable as fraud it must, among other things, be a misrepresentation as to a material fact (which if the goods, such as cordless drills, are not perishable it probably isn't) and the recipient of the misrepresentation must have justifiably relied upon the misrepresentation (which is necessary not true in the case of a representation that it was made in December 2018 on a product sold no later than July of 2018).</p>

<p>It is also not entirely clear that this is a "made on" date. It could refer, for example, to the the twelfth batch or lot or shipment of products made in 2018, and not to the month of December, or it could refer to a product made in 2018 at factory number 12. @NateEldredge in the comments also makes the plausible observation that it could be a week number which is a common system in manufacturing which would put it in a more reasonable March 2018 time frame.</p>

<p>You probably shouldn't do anything, because you haven't been harmed by this cryptic string of numbers embossed on the product, and even if you were, your damages would not be worth the time or money involved to pursue it as anything other than part of a class action lawsuit.</p>

fraud