Temu and Shein have been hit with twin class‑action lawsuits demanding they compensate customers for the “windfall profits” they allegedly pocketed after raising prices in response to the Trump administration’s post‑“Liberation Day” tariffs, now determined to be unlawful.
The coordinating complaints were filed in Cook County Circuit Court last month by McGuire Law on behalf of Lola Russell, who purchased items from both platforms from February 2025 to February 2026.
Both filings accuse the Chinese-founded e-tailers of violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act by hiking prices far beyond what products were worth to offset added tariffs on Chinese imports to the United States. After the de minimis exception for under-$800 shipments was axed, extra duties reached a peak of 145 percent, prompting Shein and Temu to announce last April they were making “price adjustments” for U.S. customers.
Shein and Temu did not respond to requests for comment.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg News, which the complaints cited, prices on the marketplaces for everything from T‑shirts to beauty products to kitchen appliances rose by as much as 377 percent, though exact figures varied widely.
Things took a turn in February, however, when the Supreme Court struck down the so‑called reciprocal tariffs, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize President Trump to impose them. The following month, the Court of International Trade ordered Customs and Border Protection to begin refunding $166 billion in now-invalidated payments.
Since then, the legal battle has shifted from federal coffers to retailers’ pockets, with a broader wave of “double recovery” litigation now sweeping the retail industry. Shein and Temu aside, similar complaints have cropped up against a wide array of brands—including Costco, Lululemon and Ray‑Ban maker EssilorLuxottica—alleging “hidden” price increases while the companies simultaneously sue the government for further enrichment on the same goods.
Retailers, for their part, argue that the administrative burden and reverse logistics of identifying and refunding millions of individual micro-transactions make consumer rebates an impossible challenge. The IEEPA duties were also immediately replaced in late February by a 10 percent global import surcharge under Section 122, meaning that retail prices are unlikely to drop in the interim.
Despite what experts say is a long shot, the Shein and Temu lawsuits claim the companies could recoup hundreds of millions of dollars from CBP—money they say consumers are now entitled to.
“Even if [Shein or Temu] does not receive a refund, it is still unfair, oppressive, unscrupulous and causes substantial injury to consumers to charge consumers the cost of unconstitutional, unlawful IEEPA tariffs that provide no benefit to Plaintiff or other consumers in any way,” the near-identical complaints claim.
They also note many companies seeking refunds have already cashed in on a secondary market where distressed investors and hedge funds buy claims for a slice of the IEEPA tariff refunds.
All this could be moot, however, if Trump’s original tariffs are restored through a Section 301 regime by July—when the Section 122 duties expire—as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Tuesday.
“We had a setback at the Supreme Court in terms of the tariff policy, but we will be implementing or conducting Section 301 studies, so the tariffs could be back in place at the previous level by beginning of July,” Bessent was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying at a Wall Street Journal event in Washington, D.C.
