E-commerce platforms increasingly use persuasive design elements, such as urgency cues and editorial badges, to steer users toward specific products. While effective at driving engagement, these tactics often emphasize only the positive aspects of items, limiting users’ ability to make well-informed decisions. This paper investigates whether embedding concise warning messages about product drawbacks can counterbalance persuasive cues and support more transparent decision-making. We conducted a controlled user study (N = 352) comparing product selection behavior in a baseline condition (persuasive cues only) versus a warning condition (where some items also displayed critical disclosures). Our results show that warnings significantly influence product choices, even in the presence of persuasive messages. Moreover, individual differences, such as consumer information search behavior and general decision-making style, moderate sensitivity to warnings. Qualitative feedback reveals that users value the added transparency and find warnings helpful, even when they choose to ignore them. We argue that integrating warnings at the point of decision can foster more ethical and trustworthy experiences with e-commerce recommender systems.