TPG plays with fire … again
Way back in December 2008, we highlighted a seriously misleading statement in TPG’s Mobile Fair Go policy.
Five months later, it’s still there, and still breaching section 53(g) of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
The difference is that, since last December, TPG has given a court-enforceable undertaking not to engage in misleading or deceptive conduct. It’s playing double-or-nothing by maintaining this untrue statement on its web site.
Memo to TPG: Read ACCC’s lips
This week, ACCC punched up phone card dealer Tel.Pacific for pricing conditions that were so unclear they were found to be misleading. Looking at TPG’s web site, their marketers need to pay more attention.
ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel can’t be much clearer than this:
‘It is highly unsatisfactory, if not illegal, for companies to make strong headline claims about their product and then seek to improperly qualify those claims in an avalanche of fine print … The ACCC has drawn a line in the sand in relation to the poor advertising practices of telecommunications companies. The industry is squarely on notice .’
Yet one of TPG’s front page offers remains very unclear about what you get for your money.
TPG pays the price of dodgy advertising
Sometimes we feel a bit sorry for companies that fall foul of ACCC. They’re small. They are naïve. They really didn’t know they were breaking the law.
But how sorry can we be for TPG, whose advertisements in late 2008 could hardly have seemed more determined to sail close to the trade practices wind, and beyond ?
Now ACCC has taken the company to task. We’ll explain what happened and its consequences in plain english.
TPG corrects advertising (again)
Last November, we showed why a featured promo on TPG’s web site didn’t comply with advertising laws. Not long after, the advert was fixed.
In December, we picked up another TPG home page blooper. Again, it’s been repaired.
Maybe somebody at TPG is reading CSP Central. 
TPG does it (wrong) again
Just a few weeks after TPG featured a plainly unlawful advertisement on its home page – which it thankfully later corrected – the company has committed another consumer protection faux pas.
This time the problem is the way that two advertisements with plenty of small print cycle every three seconds, making it nearly impossible to read anything but the headlines.
We think it’s a clear breach of clause 4.1.3 of the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code.
TPG breaches section 53(g) of TPA
It’s amazing that CSPs with the turnover of TPG still produce seriously illegal advertising and contracts.
Following November’s outrageous website advertisement, TPG has been found with a clear breach of section 53(g) of the Trade Practices Act in its standard terms.
TPG repairs one TPA breach, but now there’s another
We reported in November that national ISP / telco TPG was running a plainly illegal advertisement on its home page.
The company has now changed the advert to come closer to legal compliance. We still think the ads are obliged to mention that a ‘Fair Go‘ policy applies.
But maybe it’s just as well the policy isn’t linked to the ad. It sits next to a trade practices law howler that is better kept out of public view.
Mythbuster: A CSP can’t change its contract instantly
