Consumer rights

Court orders $6m in penalties against Bupa and compensation for consumers

The Federal Court has ordered that Bupa Aged Care Australia Pty Ltd (Bupa) pay $6 million in penalties for making misleading representations and wrongly accepting payments for extra services not provided or only provided in part to residents at 20 aged care homes.

The Court has also ordered Bupa by consent to compensate all affected current and past residents within 12 months. Bupa has already commenced paying compensation to affected residents and estimates that it will pay around $18.3 million in total.

TEG Live to refund over $5 million to consumers for USA basketball games

TEG Live Pty Limited (TEG Live) has committed to refunding over $5 million to about 5000 consumers who bought approximately 20,000 tickets to watch basketball games featuring the USA men’s national basketball team in August 2019, after providing a court-enforceable undertaking to the ACCC.

The games in which the USA national team played the ‘Boomers’, the Australian national basketball team, on 22 and 24 August 2019 in Melbourne and the Canadian national basketball team on 26 August 2019 in Sydney, were promoted by TEG Live from March 2018.

Advice on event and travel cancellations due to COVID-19

The ACCC has issued advice for consumers and businesses on their rights and obligations if events, flights or travel services are cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), or if people wish to cancel their travel plans. 

If events, flights or other travel services such as cruises are cancelled, the ACCC expects refunds or other remedy such as a credit note or voucher will be offered in most circumstances. 

Changes needed to protect consumers using customer loyalty schemes

Improvements to customer loyalty schemes and broader legislative reforms are required to protect consumers using loyalty schemes, according to the ACCC’s final report into customer loyalty schemes released today.

The report recommends loyalty schemes, such as frequent flyer, supermarket and hotel operators, better inform consumers, improve their data practices and stop automatically linking members’ payment cards to their loyalty scheme profiles. It also calls for broader changes to consumer and privacy law.

Final report

In December 2019, the ACCC released its final report for the customer loyalty schemes review. The final report details the ACCC’s findings and recommendations following its research and consultation conducted through the review.