A Sydney-based removalist has been fined $6,600 and agreed to a court enforceable undertaking after admitting to the consumer watchdog publishing false and misleading customer testimonials on a website it owned.
Citymove, which also owns the Moving Reviews website, took copied reviews of its services published on unrelated websites and published them on its Moving Reviews website, with details such as the username of the consumer, the star rating and the name of the removalist company altered.
James Wheeler, director of Citymove, says the company was attempting to collate its reviews in one place and create a website where it could interact with reviewers who had had problems.
But Wheeler says the developer who completed the project was worried about copyright issues and changed details of the reviews to get around this.
“He was worried about copyright but he should have been worried about the false and misleading problem,” Wheeler says.
Wheeler says the Moving Reviews website was taken down within three weeks and has not been made live again.
“It was just a mistake. It wasn’t like we were actively trying to mislead people. But there was no forgiveness from the ACCC, I can tell you that.”
The ACCC says Citymove “failed to have in place procedures to ensure the accuracy of the copied testimonials and allowed the website to go live in the knowledge that errors existed on the website.”
Regulations expressly banning the use of misleading testimonials came into force as part of the Australian Consumer Law amendments at the start of this year. The Australian Consumer Law replaced the Trade Practices Act and is the key legislation under which the ACCC works.
“This outcome serves as a reminder for businesses to take care when using consumer testimonials and ensure their websites are accurate,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said in a statement released this morning.
Wheeler says like many small businesses his firm finds it hard to keep up with rapid changes in technology and social media and believes more needs to be done to educate SMEs.
“It’s unreasonable that a little bit more leeway isn’t given by the ACCC. They consider this mainstream advertising but the effect on people is so small.”
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
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