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People Telecom supplies telecommunication services, including mobile, fixed phone and data services, to Australian businesses and consumers.
For the past several years it has used telemarketers and door-to-door sales agents to promote its products. It appears that these agents transferred some prospective customers’ services to People Telecom without their consent, or after representing that:
the agents were working on behalf of the customer’s current telecommunications carrier;
People Telecom was an agent or subsidiary of the customer’s current carrier or resold that carrier’s services;
the customer was required to change their carrier to People Telecom; or
changing to People Telecom would not compromise any current contractual or billing arrangements with their current carrier;
when this was not the case.
As a result of this conduct, the ACCC believes that People Telecom engaged in conduct that was misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive, and made representations that it has affiliation it does not have, and that this conduct was likely to have contravened sections 52 and 53(d) of the Trade Practices Act 1974. People Telecom acknowledges that by virtue of section 84 of the Act the conduct engaged in on behalf of People Telecom by its agents shall be deemed to have been engaged in by People Telecom.
In response to concerns that People Telecom may have breached the Trade Practices Act, it has offered the ACCC a court enforceable undertaking that it will:
not make misrepresentations of the kinds listed above;
write to affected customers, and place a notice on its website, offering to allow them to terminate their contract without penalty, and refund or waive certain debts arising from the misrepresentations;
monitor the conduct of its agents and ensure they comply with the scripts provided by People Telecom; and
implement a trade practices compliance program, including a complaints handling system that will be integrated with the credit management process.
Linksea Pty Ltd is a manufacturer and importer of household furniture, including desks, bookcases and bunk beds.
In March 2009, Linksea was informed that its Snow bunk bed complied with the mandatory standard governing bunk beds supplied in Australia. It then commenced supply of the Snow bunk to consumers. As part of a product safety survey, the ACCC purchased one of these bunks and arranged for it to be tested against the standard. When tests were completed in July 2009, the Snow bunk failed to comply, with parts of the bunk creating entrapment hazards, as well as a danger that a child using the top bunk would fall out.
The ACCC immediately contacted Linksea to inform them of the test results. Linksea then conducted a recall of the Snow Bunk. All 38 Snow Bunks which had been supplied to retailers and consumers were located. Where requested, consumers received a refund. In other cases, the beds were made safe through modification of the noncompliant elements. Where the beds had not been supplied to consumers, they were destroyed. No injuries occurred as a result of the noncompliance.
It appears that the noncompliance arose as a result of differences between the Snow Bunk’s design and the finished product, and that differences resulted from insufficient manufacturing quality control. Linksea admits that, by supplying a bunk bed that did not comply with the relevant mandatory standard, it is likely to have contravened the section 65C of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
In response to concerns that Linksea may have breached the Trade Practices Act, it has offered the ACCC a court enforceable undertaking that it will implement a trade practices compliance program, which will include:
training on the product safety provisions of the Act and mandatory product safety standards covering Linksea’s products;
monitoring of Linksea’s products covered by a mandatory standard to check that they are properly labelled;
monitoring of those products to check variation from their designs; and
modification to the designs to take into account manufacturing variation to ensure the finished goods comply with the standard.
Between August 2008 to August 2009, Sony Trading Pty Ltd, an Australian importer and distributor of food and beverages, imported banned mini jelly cup products containing konjac which can cause choking.
The jelly cup products were supplied to nine Asian grocery retailers in the Sydney metropolitan and Central Coast regions of New South Wales.
Sony Trading has been cooperative and has:
notified the retailers who had purchased the jelly cups and requested that they withdraw them from sale;
undertaken a full product recall and notification on 1 October 2009 through the Recalls Australia website, www.
On 16 February 2010, the ACCC accepted the undertaking of Mr. Benedict Wa Tat Li, a director of Toll Holdings Ltd and/or its related bodies corporate.
Under the undertaking Mr.