Star Telegram: Price comparison Web sites may not be trustworthy

Texas has managed to shut down several of the fake price comparison sites that were either being paid for, or were owned by, the bait and switch websites.  Per the following excerpt from this article, Albert Houllou owns one third of Everyprice.com.  He's the bait and switch kingpin who runs Broadway Photo as well as at least ten other websites.
Excerpt:
Price comparison Web sites are great tools for many online shoppers. Take an item on your wish list, plug it into one of these services, and instantly out comes pages of prices and retailers to help shoppers find the best deal.  But are they always giving consumers the truth?  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott found seven sites last week that he alleges were not.  "We have uncovered some wrongdoing by some online services that are misleading consumers about the value and bargain that they think they are getting," said Abbott in a news conference. "What we discovered was a cash-for-rating scheme in which some merchants actually paid for high rankings."
Abbott’s office took legal action against two companies based in Brooklyn, N.Y.: Intercept Llc., which operated Shopcartusa.com, Diduprice.com, Flyingprices.com, Digital saver.com and Pricingdepot.com; and another online company, Everyprice.com, which also operated Lowpricedigital.com.  As of Thursday, all the Intercept Web sites except Pricingdepot.com say that their operations have been suspended. Everyprice.com and Lowpricedigital.com state that the sites are "under construction."  In both lawsuits, Abbott charged the companies, which did business with Texas consumers, with misrepresentation under the Deceptive Trades Practices Act.
Intercept was charged with falsely representing that its merchants were "rated best places to shop," had the "lowest legitimate prices" and were "customer-certified," according to the lawsuit. The company was accused of endorsing merchants even though it knew the retailers had numerous complaints against them.  In its final judgment, Intercept agreed to either pay a $300,000 civil penalty or shut down. The company, which could not be reached for comment, agreed to shut its Web sites.  In the Everyprice.com lawsuit, the company is accused of secretly steering shoppers toward certain retailers and not disclosing that the merchants were paying for favorable treatment.  The Internet Enforcement Unit of the attorney general’s consumer protection division said it discovered that Everyprice.com also allowed merchants to create their own endorsements for a fee. Customers complained that Everyprice.com merchants used bait-and-switch tactics to persuade them to buy more expensive products, the lawsuit contends. Other customer complaints alleged that the company’s "five-star rating" had few requirements to obtain.
In addition, one merchant, Albert Houllou, who owns one-third of Everyprice.com, is also the sole owner of 11 retailers that the lawsuit alleges are prominently featured on the comparison-shopping services. One of Houllou’s companies, Broadway Photo, is also involved with other deceptive-trade-practice lawsuits by the Texas and New York attorneys general.