Holden to give full refunds over bad ads

[Darren]

Holden has been forced to offer full refunds to hundreds of customers who bought discounted Commodores and other cars after the consumer watchdog found it guilty of misleading advertising.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it had accepted court-enforceable undertakings offered by GM Holden Ltd in relation to its recent high-profile "You Pay What We Pay" advertising campaign.

The refund offer applies to consumers who bought the vehicles between October 21 and November 9 last year, when they were first subject to an advertised special discount.

The ACCC said Holden's promotion of its best selling range had run from October to December 2005 among much hype that "For the first time ever, all Australians can enjoy the financial benefit of Holden Employee Pricing".

But an investigation revealed that employees of the US-owned Melbourne-based car giant received discounts that were not available to the general public, the commission said.

It said these included discounts on factory fitted options and accessories as well as a discounted dealer delivery fee.

At the beginning of the advertising campaign, a special discount of between 25 per cent and 29 per cent was also available to employees but not the general public for selected VZ Commodore variants and WL Statesman and Caprice vehicles.

"In financial terms, this meant that a consumer who, at the commencement of the promotion, purchased a VZ Commodore Executive sedan with air conditioning as a factory fitted option and a $1,495 dealer delivery charge, paid $4,729 more to purchase the car than a Holden employee buying the same car," the ACCC statement said.

Holden had believed that the inclusion of fine print qualifications regarding options, accessories and dealer delivery fee had limited the offer to the baseline price of the vehicle, but the ACCC disagreed.

"The ACCC's view was that the headline statement `You Pay What We Pay' was so powerful that no qualification in fine print could undo the message it conveyed to consumers," ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said in the statement.

"The undertaking given by GM Holden provides a mechanism for redress for between 250 and 300 consumers who did not receive the (initial) special discount."

Mr Samuel said while there has been an overall improvement in advertising practices by car manufacturers, the ACCC "will continue to seek improvement where substantive concerns are identified".

"An important message to anyone using powerful and novel messages in their advertising as GM Holden did, is that the message communicated by the advertising to consumers and the goods or service ultimately delivered to those consumers must be a perfect match."

A spokesman for Holden said the company had worked closely with the ACCC to resolve what was "a simple human mistake".

"We offered the public Holden employee pricing but had mistakenly offered a second discount to Holden employees at the same time for a brief period," the spokesman said.

"This should not have occurred so we are happy to offer refunds to the 314 affected customers if they wish to take that up."

The spokesman said the company had sold a total of 11,000 cars throughout the campaign.

Source - smh.com.au

Thanks to 'jvp007' for bringing this to my attention.

 

[Troy711]

haha, 'if they wish to take it up'. what does that mean, they are not going to bother to contact those customers, the customer has to go to them?

 

[mattman]

Yep means exactly that..

It's there if they want it, but they have to ask first.

 

[vy_storm]

I'd pay extra to not have that annoying twit Dave Hughes on their ads anymore.

 

[New2Holden]

Damn, I bought my VZ in December 2005 :cry:

 

[Fekason]

Who's to know?

Now the big question is whether Holden is going to write to the unfortunate 314 and offer them the option of a refund!

Or are they hoping the offer will expire without most/many/some of the 314 becoming aware that it applies to them?

 

[ruredi]

Now the big question is whether Holden is going to write to the unfortunate 314 and offer them the option of a refund!

Or are they hoping the offer will expire without most/many/some of the 314 becoming aware that it applies to them?

thats why it pays to be a member of JC............:yeah: :thumbsup: !!!

 

[vy_storm]

Now the big question is whether Holden is going to write to the unfortunate 314 and offer them the option of a refund!

Or are they hoping the offer will expire without most/many/some of the 314 becoming aware that it applies to them?

If you were in management at Holden what would you do?

I think its pretty obvious that they will try and get away with whatever they can.

 

[kirkson]

I wish I was my brotherinlaw he works at holden by design they do all the after market stuff, you should see the stuff he brings home from work, problem is he is a tight ass dosen't like to share p#@ck

 

[New2Holden]

Now the big question is whether Holden is going to write to the unfortunate 314 and offer them the option of a refund!

Or are they hoping the offer will expire without most/many/some of the 314 becoming aware that it applies to them?

You need to read the ACCC release on this matter to get a full understanding of the GMH undertaking. Read here http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/732368/fromItemId/142

Note the first bullet point where it states that GMH has undertaken to provide "written notce". Interesting that the release goes onto to say "the opportunity to return the vehicle for a full refund of the purchase price" Presumably this means you give them the vehicle and they give you back the price you paid for it.

However the key thing here to answer the question is that GMH are commited to advising the 314 in writing. I can tell you that Australian businesses do not want to be on the wrong side of the ACCC.