You arrived at this page by selecting:Unfair Commercial Practices Regulations (YEP 10/04/08)
We have many weird and wonderful regulations which were brought in to protect consumers. Lots of these regulations are very precise about what you can and can't do. You may think that this is a good thing. But being precise means that there are plenty of people (in the business of making money) who work out weird and wonderful ways of how to get round these rules or think up other ways of doing the same thing. They might technically be within the law but ethically or morally they are doing exactly what the legislation was trying to stop.
Well new rules are on their way - May 26th to be exact. Good news for consumers supposedly but I'm not so sure. These new regulations are much more general and apply to business practices that affect consumers. The regulations will put a general ban on all commercial practices that are deemed unfair which includes misleading and aggressive practices. They will apply to actions directly connected to the promotion, (including marketing and advertising) supply or sale of products or services to or from consumers.
But what is deemed as unfair? I don't think many people would argue with lots of the practices on the banned list but one statement from the draft legislation states that it is unfair if 'it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product'. Whatever this is supposed to mean it probably includes making someone buy something they probably would not have otherwise bought.
Few businesses set out to coerce or mislead people but making someone buy something they probably would not have otherwise bought sounds like marketing to me. Are we not bombarded everyday with advertisements selling us lifestyles not just products and services?
Other banned practices include falsely stating that a product will only be available for a short time (to encourage an immediate decision), advertising that encourages children to pester parents to buy products or exaggerating personal security risks in order to sell safety products. I don't know about you but I can think of many promotions which would fall into these categories.
So are businesses likely to run into trouble for doing things that many firms consider fair game in a competitive environment. I think they probably are. These regulations are intended to penalise the out-and-out rogues and people who try to take unfair advantage but I can see many legitimate businesses falling foul of an over-zealous interpretation of these rules.
In summary, it is important that all businesses, retail and service providers alike, begin to review their business practices thoroughly before the introduction of the new rules just to make sure that what they do and don't do complies with the law.
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