
Australian firm Meriton fined $3M for misleading consumers on TripAdvisor - markdown
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/meriton-to-pay-3-million-for-misleading-consumers-on-tripadvisor
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i386
I occasionally wish the ACCC had some more teeth but this is a good result. As
a citizen, on the whole, I'm as proud of Australia's strong consumer
protection laws as I am of our gun protection laws.

~~~
roganartu
The ACCC and strong consumer protection laws are something I didn't realise I
took for granted until I moved to the US recently. I had a pair of pants
develop a hole within a few weeks of purchase so I took them back to the store
and it was difficult to convince them that pants should last longer than that
and get a replacement. This is in contrast to my Fitbit, for example, which I
had replaced about three times in two years without question in Australia
because of a fault in the band.

It's interesting that capitalism comes into it somewhat, insofar as companies
like Amazon and REI have consumer-friendly return policies as a sort of
competitive advantage. I know I've bought things from REI despite a higher
price just because I know I won't have any problems returning it for any
reason within 12 months.

~~~
hmd_imputer
That is interesting. In my case, I have had the best consumer-friendly
experience when it comes to returning or replacing items in the US. Returning
electronics, clothes etc. to Wallmart, Target, BestBuy was totally hassle-
free. When compared to Germany, the overall experience in the US is much
better. Although Germans have "stronger" customer rights protection, in
reality, you get less customer satisfaction. For example, a few days ago I
purchased a pair of sunglasses from TKMaxx in Germany. After wearing it a
couple of times, I realized that there are tiny scratches on them. I then took
it back for a replacement. I was denied the replacement, because "the item
didn't have the original price sticker on it". It was such a ridiculous
excuse. I tear the price sticker the moment I buy the stuff. How am I supposed
to test it to see if I like it without using it at all? There was another
friend of mine who wanted to get a replacement for a malfunctioning smartphone
he bought in MediaMarkt. He was also denied the replacement in the first
place. After a long "negotiations" he was finally given a new smartphone,
which, again, would not happen in the US at all. All in all, I find shopping
experience in the US to be way better than in Europe.

~~~
roganartu
You'll find that replacements for change of mind in Australia (and perhaps
other countries with strong consumer protections) are less friendly. I have
definitely noticed there are more stores in the US (especially big box
retailers that are competing with Amazon) that have flexible return policies
in the short term for changing your mind, while my expectation for any store
in Australia is that you are likely unable to return something for change of
mind if it has been used.

The trade off for that is that you get very long periods of fitness for use,
where you can comfortably buy something that is advertised for a purpose and
know that you can return it after a reasonable time if it isn't actually fit
for that purpose. A good example is smartphones and laptops, where Australian-
sold iphones effectively have a two year warranty and macbooks have a three
year one iirc because of these strong consumer protection laws.

It's these kinds of faulty goods returns to smaller retailers that I've had
most trouble with in the US (and where I think consumer protection makes the
most sense). In Australia the consumer would simply file a complaint online to
the Department of Fair Trading (or whatever it is for their state) and these
are usually resolved within a couple of weeks or less and usually in the
consumer's favour. I'm not aware of any equivalent in the US, and if it does
exist I'm sure it varies significantly state-to-state.

~~~
sandworm101
>> How am I supposed to test it to see if I like it without using it at all?

Test it in the store. Nobody in north america expects they can buy something,
walk away with it, and then have a right to return it simply because they
don't "like it". A store may take it back but only because they are kind, not
because they are under any legal obligation.

Remember there is always a flip side to returns. Either the seller eats a
loss, or they put the now used object back on the shelf as new. That is why
safety-related products have a zero-returns policy. Rock climbing gear is
generally non-returnable. I probably would not buy climbing gear from any
store that did returns for fear of getting used gear with unseen problems.

~~~
always_good
> Nobody in north america expects they can buy something, walk away with it,
> and then have a right to return it simply because they don't "like it".

What are you talking about? Many refund agreements have exactly this in mind.
It's a competitive advantage for the store to be lenient.

When I worked at Walmart and Target during summers as a teen, we were
encouraged to get the customer to buy a few different options (curtains for
example) and tell them to just return the ones they don't want. Especially
clothes.

I encourage you to check out the terms of refund for the places you shop
instead of assuming you're stuck with a product you don't want.

~~~
sandworm101
>> Many refund agreements have exactly this in mind.

Agreements, contracts between willing parties, not legal rights coming from
law. I expect that I can return something, I don't pretend that I have a legal
expectation that I can do so at any and all stores.

~~~
hmd_imputer
Well, the fact is Germany has neither. At least in the US customers do get
higher quality customer service and that is what matters. I would rather have
a satisfied consumer experience than a useless set of laws and regulations
that does no good to anyone.

As @always_good pointed out already, a flexible return policy is actually a
competitive advantage for the company if they know how to conduct a retail
business properly. I, for example, would always prefer Amazon to any other
German online store simply because the confidence Amazon gives me when
shopping. I can easily go on a shopping spree on Amazon knowing that if I
don't like something I can easily send it back, although, during the last 3
years, I haven't sent a single item back to Amazon.

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ggm
Meriton is run by Harry Triguboff who is one of a generation of migrant
financiers, industrialists and corporate heads who defined postwar Australia.
He has a pretty strong involvement in the Australian housing bubble and some
people have said online he's propping up the price boom, as Chinese investors
duck out of the market.

I've also read that he retains substantive control of the apartment complex
body corporate, to milk it for post-construction fee income, which can be a
long, long tail of money. And, he can stop the BC voting to reduce management
fees, or stop it forcing the developer to fix post-construction minor slipups.

~~~
Intermernet
As someone who has a few contacts in the high density housing market in
Australia, I can say that I've heard similar rumours regarding Meriton. I've
also heard horror stories about their actual construction quality and the
expected life span of their apartments etc. Unfortunately, they don't seem to
be doing anything illegal, so it's really up to the Australian public to push
for stronger regulations regarding these practices, or just not buy into high
density housing in most of Australia as it seems there has been a race to the
bottom amongst Meriton and it's competitors.

~~~
caf
At least in terms of the body corporate issue, the owners corporation does
have a legal duty to act in the interests of _all_ owners.

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RileyJames
The precedent this sets is interesting. From my interpretation, a business
must request reviews from all customers, via all methods, for each platform,
in order to not be considered ‘manipulating consumers’.

This will have impacts for all the saas review management products, as their
key selling point is usually: get more reviews from your happy customers, or
stop your unhappy customers posting reviews. Which is usually done by
targeting or omitting either group.

Any Australian business using such product would now be on the hook.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Yeah, I'm hoping there was just some info missing from the article, but this
decision seems all sorts of fucked up.

All Trip Advisor Review Express really does automate the process of requesting
reviews on Trip Advisor. It's not much harder to just email out requests to
guests yourself. So is this decision saying if you only emailed requests to
people who thought would give you a good review, but not a bad review, that
you are guilty of something?

If so, literally 99% of businesses would be guilty of this. When someone calls
to complain, every business tries to handle it in house. It's not like they
say "Oh, I'm sorry you had a bad experience, let me get you the contact info
for BBB so you can complain to them, and be sure to post a bad review on our
Facebook page!"

What about all those apps that pop up a dialog that says "Do you love our
app?" and if you say yes it takes you to the app store, and if you say no it
shows an internal complaint dialog?

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mikeash
I don’t see what’s so bad about this. Just because 99% of businesses do it
doesn’t make it ok. Encouraging happy people to leave reviews and discouraging
upset people means the reviews aren’t accurate, and you turn them from a
useful tool for getting outside opinions into a marketing tool that just
benefits businesses at the expense of their customers.

I don’t see this as being any different from, say, getting a passing
inspection from the health department by manipulating them away from the room
where you keep all the cockroaches and rat feces.

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ajdlinux
The original judgment can be found at [http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-
bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2...](http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-
bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2017/1305.html) (this doesn't include today's
decision about the penalty)

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tomglynch
This is so interesting! There are so many apps that request reviews, I'm sure
a lot only do it when the user seems happy to be using the app. Could they be
fined?

I mean - it's good that they have been fined, but I'm concerned about the
precedent it sets!

Another thought - how did ACCC find out about this? Someone internal reported
it to them?

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paulhart
The judgement indicates that the issue here was that Meriton was actively
preventing people from being asked for reviews in certain circumstances. Very
different from someone being asked for a review and choosing not to give one.

~~~
tomglynch
What I am talking about is when an App will sometimes have a popup saying
"Love this app? leave a review" with a link. Does this fall under the same
issue if the app selectively chooses who to display this pop up to?

~~~
T-Winsnes
My gut feel on this, is that if you use a metric to infer if you will get a
positive review and only show the popup in those cases, you might be in
conflict of this ruling

~~~
tomglynch
This is my feeling too - it's crazy how easy it is to break this law. It will
also be very difficult to enforce though.

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paranoidrobot
If you have enough annoyed off customers that you're running analytics to
determine whether they're likely to leave a negative review, and interfering
with their ability to leave that review on a third party site - then perhaps
you should focus more on fixing your business instead.

If you're asking a customer if they're satisfied with the service/product, and
then following that up to try and resolve it - that's not misleading or
deceptive, that's normal customer service.

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zero_intp
I used to work for Cogent Communications, this was common practice in customer
service. Comstat scores are 100% gamed.

The Global Director of customer service has his managers change ticket
parameters for two weeks around ticket closure so that only 'happy' customers
get review emails.

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devoply
$3M seems way excessive for a company that owns 15 properties. However it
seems this is a big company:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriton)

~~~
anoplus
Just an idea. Why not penalize by percentage? If the goal of penalties is to
prevent companies from breaking laws that are equally valid for everyone.
Otherwise, companies holding most capital will be practically above the law.

~~~
hayyyyydos
> Why not penalize by percentage?

The ACCC usually does do it this way.

Some recent examples: [https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/air-nz-
penalised-15-mi...](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/air-nz-
penalised-15-million-for-price-fixing) \- Air NZ penalised $15m
[https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/iphone-and-ipad-
misrep...](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/iphone-and-ipad-
misrepresentations-cost-apple-inc-9-million-in-penalties) \- Apple fined $9m
[https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/domain-name-corp-
and-d...](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/domain-name-corp-and-domain-
name-agency-to-pay-195-million-in-penalties) \- Domain Name Corp/Agency fined
$1.95m

You'll see that most of these amounts are pretty close to the amount the
companies made from the activities and scale with the size of their operations

