UK based audio branding company Please Hold (UK) Limited (PHMG) has committed to amend its contract terms after an ACCC investigation into allegations that PHMG’s standard form contract contained unfair contract terms, and limited consumer guarantee rights.
PHMG provides audio branding services including on-hold music and on-hold marketing services to small business customers.
ACCC Deputy Chair Mick Keogh spoke at this year’s Franchise Council of Australia Legal Symposium, where he discussed legislative changes that affect the franchise and small business sectors.
The ACCC received over 3,500 contacts from small businesses in the first six months of this year, the highest number of contacts in the last two years.
The ACCC’s latest Small Business in Focus report, released today, highlights the ACCC’s work from January to June 2021 in the small business, franchising and agriculture sectors.
The report shows that approximately one quarter of all small business contacts to the ACCC are about online business activity.
A business contacting the ACCC between January and June this year was most likely reporting false and misleading conduct, asking about their obligations to consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic or raising concerns about consumer guarantees.
That’s according to the latest Small Business in Focus report, which details the ACCC’s work in the first half of 2020 across the small business, franchising and agriculture sectors.
Reports to the ACCC by small businesses about false and misleading conduct by other businesses including suppliers increased by eight per cent, totalling more than 900, in the six months to 31 December 2019.
This issue continues to be the Australian Consumer Law issue most commonly affecting small businesses, and accounts for over a third of small business reports made to the ACCC, according to the latest Small Business in Focus Report, published today.
The ACCC has found that franchisors in the food services sector are commonly providing inadequate information to potential franchisees.
In its most recent round of compliance checks of the franchising industry, the ACCC reviewed disclosure documents from a sample of 12 franchisors in the food services sector and found many were problematic.
The Federal Court has ordered that Domain Corp Pty Ltd and Domain Name Agency Pty Ltd (also trading as Domain Name Register) pay combined penalties of $1.95 million for breaching the Australian Consumer Law.
From November 2015 to at least April 2017, the two Domain Companies sent out approximately 300,000 unsolicited notices to businesses, which looked like a renewal invoice for the business’s existing domain name. Instead, these notices were for the registration of a new domain name at a cost ranging from $249 to $275.