Online shopping

Florists remove misleading ‘local business’ representations from webpages

United Florists Pty Ltd trading as Lily’s Florist and Elysium Marketing Pty Ltd, a related body corporate, have each provided a court-enforceable undertaking to the ACCC in relation to misleading representations that Lily’s Florist was a local florist. 

United Florists has admitted that it made misleading representations that Lily’s Florist was a local florist or had a physical presence in a particular suburb, town or location when in fact Lily’s Florist is an online florist which employs an outsourcing model, fulfilling orders via third-party florists.  

Kogan tax time promotion found to be false or misleading

The Federal Court has found online retailer Kogan Australia Pty Ltd (Kogan) breached the Australian Consumer Law by making false and misleading representations about a tax time sales promotion, in proceedings brought by the ACCC.

Kogan ran the online promotion from 27 to 30 June 2018, advertising to consumers that they could use the code ‘TAXTIME’ to reduce prices by 10 per cent at checkout.  The promotion was advertised on Kogan’s website, in emails it sent to more than 10 million consumers, and in SMS messages to more than 930,000 consumers.

Safety review of baby bouncers, rockers and inclined sleep products

The ACCC will today begin a safety review of products designed for infants such as bouncers, rockers and inclined sleep products.

The market review will be on inclined baby products used for sleeping, where the baby’s head and back are inclined, and may include a harness or belt to secure the baby into the product.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has reported that at least 74 infant fatalities have occurred in the United States while using bouncers, rockers and recliners.

Australian businesses hit hard by email scams

Australian businesses reported more than 5800 scams with losses exceeding $7.2 million in 2018, a 53 per cent increase compared to 2017, according to the ACCC’s Targeting scams report.

Much of this increase is due to the $3.8 million reported lost to sophisticated ‘business email compromise’ scams. When combined with losses reported to the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network, these scams cost Australian businesses over $60 million.