Posts Tagged ‘ACCC’

Scoopon gets hit with accusations of cheating

Thursday, July 11th, 2013

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has levied accusations against online coupon website Scoopon in Federal Court. 

The ACCC has alleged that Scoopon engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and made false and misleading representations to businesses and consumers.

The ACCC alleges that Scoopon:

  • misled consumers regarding their ability to redeem vouchers, their refund rights and the price of goods advertised in relation to some of its deals;
  • that Scoopon told businesses there was no cost or risk involved in running a deal with Scoopon, when a fee was in fact payable to the site, and;
  • that Scoopon misled businesses by claiming that between 20 and 30% of vouchers would not be redeemed, when there was no reasonable basis for this representation.

The ACCC is seeking declarations, injunctions, community service orders, pecuniary penalties and costs in the Scoopon case.

To read more on this story, click here.

Optus v Vodafone: the Telco wars

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Optus believes that Vodafone Hutchinson is running misleading ads over its new Infinite mobile phone plans, specifically that the qualifications to its plans haven’t been adequately disclosed in its advertising. Infinite plans are touted as an alternative to fixed line rentals, for $45 per month.  So Optus is taking Vodafone to Federal Court over these alleged misleading ads, seeking an interim injunction from these ads being run.

Optus itself has two ongoing cases in the courts whereby the ACCC argues that it is running misleading ads itself.  One is for the ‘unlimited plan’, which the ACCC argues its not what is promised, and another plan is for limits on downloads, which Optus has allegedly not disclosed to customers.

The full article is on SMH here.