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’s headline

Here’s one of the flash media offers that greets visitors to TPG online:

OK, what do I take away from that ?  An offer of $300 worth of calls, text and data for $19.99 a month.  Sure, there are some exclusions, but they won’t seriously change the basic deal … will they ?

The click through page

Hmmm … here’s what we find when we click the first screen:

So, the $49 Cap Saver Plan offers ‘included data’ – which sounds like what we read on the front page – but no ‘free data download’.  Hmmm, what’s the difference between ‘included data’ and ‘free data download’ anyway ?  To make it even more obscure, the same page advises:

We recommend using 3G handsets with the Premium and Executive Mobile Cap Saver plans to take advantage of included Free data.

So now, in addition to ‘free data’ and ‘included data’ we have ‘included free data’.  And the plan doesn’t include the first but does include the second, and who knows about the third ???

But if the ‘included data’ isn’t free, then what does it cost ? Certainly nothing on the page containing the table throws any light on the question.

So on we pushed

On we went to the Call Rates page.  No luck there either.  Maybe in the standard terms ?  Nope.

Look, there may be an answer somewhere, expressed somehow, on the site.  But remember we started this search because we were attracted by an advert that flashed out:

If data chews through that $300 allowance at, say, $8/GB, it’s a great deal.  If the rate is $1,000/GB it’s a terrible deal.  And despite looking carefully, we haven’t been able to discover what rate does apply.

That’s why CSP marketing staff need to listen up when the ACCC Chairman says:

‘I made it very clear when I addressed the Australian Telecommunications Users Group on 13 March 2009 that the ACCC has drawn a line in the sand in relation to the poor advertising practices of telecommunications companies.’