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.
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.
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.Now ACCC has taken the company to task. We’ll explain what happened and its consequences in plain english.
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.Maybe somebody at TPG is reading CSP Central. 
We think it’s a clear breach of clause 4.1.3 of the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code.
It’s amazing that CSPs with the turnover of TPG still produce seriously illegal advertising and contracts.
We reported in November that national ISP / telco TPG was running a plainly illegal advertisement on its home page.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.
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