Mobile provider 3 is shirt-fronting ACCC in its current ‘Hot Offers’ promotional brochure. Total pricing for 24 month plans throughout the document is buried in a sea of barely readable, light-coloured, small print at the foot of each page.
Under the new component pricing law that kicked in on 25 May, the single buy price of a plan like that must be ‘specified in a prominent way’. If 3′s catalogue goes anywhere near passing that test, the new law is dead.
ACCC really needs to kick off some enforcement action against retailers it considers aren’t complying with section 53C of the Trade Practices Act. It’s hard to expect CSPs to follow the spirit of the component pricing law when their competitors seem to be getting away with feint micro-print.
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Working in advertising, I’ve often been puzzled by the concept of fineprint. The T&Cs my clients supply me are very much like 3′s above. I.e. extremely lengthy and written in complex legal speak that no average Australian consumer would actually understand. How about something that actually makes sense? Component pricing law is definitely a step in the right direction, but definitely agree there needs to be some stronger enforcement.