Holden To Give Full Refunds Over Bad 'You Pay What We Pay' Ads

[JoeT]

Holden To Give Full Refunds Over Bad Ads

AAP
19 April 2006
www.ninemsn.com.au

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.

'You Pay What We Pay' TV Advertisement

Original GMI News Thread
Original GMI Discussion Thread

[Tomko]

Ouch!

However, it is nice to see someone pursuing truth in advertising on behalf of the consumer.

[ChevyPV]

Hopefully this doesn't come up for GM stateside, because it was the same senario here during the employee pricing.

[nikivee]

I wonder when it will hit GM NA?

[SUPERBADD75]

funny that they could have worded it just a little differently and this wouldn't be happening. this just seems like a careless mistake.

[cfch3399]

Good for Australia! I wish we'd punish corporations who don't keep true to their word. Bad for GM and their incompetent lawyers/marketers. Don't these people get payed to precisely avert this sort of thing?

[Motownr]

This could be a HUGE deal for GM. This kind of innocent screwup is exactly what class action law firms live for.

[Slick_Holden]

It's no big deal, Holden pays back the $$$$ and they go away, No need to get out the QC's pay back and everyone is happy.

[mikmak]

Originally Posted by SUPERBADD75

funny that they could have worded it just a little differently and this wouldn't be happening. this just seems like a careless mistake.

We discussed this at work and aside from the smart @$$ remark from the Ford fan : "I thought the false advertising was due to customers thinking they were buying a competent modern car?" , the point aslo come up that people need to read the fine print and take responsibility for their own actions. Disclaimers and conditions are the crux of any offer or sale. The ACCC can't just say the ad was misleading. Most advertising is a crock.

Pay attention and you can make a decision based on facts.

For instance, there are heaps of food items that are 99% fat free, however they usually have very high sugar content. So even though you aren't eating fat, it turns to fat once it enters you're body and is not used (for energy).

The whole evolution of authorities making decisions like the this one will end up with advertising being so full of conditions and discalimers that the actual benefit will be lost. Consumers, who have become so reliant on signs telling them where not to stand or what not to eat , wont be able to make an educated choice. Its marketters heaven and a very scary prospect when people can't think for themselves.

[Martino_z]

Thats pretty careless by holden. Despite this I'm sure they will still get good press for the refund. From what Ive seen Holden is pretty happy to throw money around to its customers like with that adventra thing a few years back. Holden lowered the price of the adventra so they sent checks to people who already bought them with the difference.

I gotta say though. For the amount of false advertising I see on TV its pretty sad that the only one that we hear about is holden. If the law wants to ignore the fine print then the majority of ads on tv are doing the same thing.

[Slick_Holden]

Holden is in the spotlight right now, And it seems that alot of people are pissed with them at the moment. And i don't know why.
How many ad out there are misleading All of them.

[AndrewGS]

So dealer-fitted options, accesories and dealer fees are all that this is about? Talk about nitpicking.

[chinamonty]

When I worked in the auto industry in Melbourne I could by a brand new Falcon without paying GST. This was available to Tier 1 subcontract firms and employees (even contractors). Still I think they got this one right. The headline was just too powerful which is a pity really because you were getting a good deal anyway.

[paul8488]

Bah. There's fine print for a reason. As usual, if people bought the cars at the prices they paid it's because they were happy with the discounts offered.

[Slick_Holden]

Originally Posted by chinamonty

When I worked in the auto industry in Melbourne I could by a brand new Falcon without paying GST. This was available to Tier 1 subcontract firms and employees (even contractors). Still I think they got this one right. The headline was just too powerful which is a pity really because you were getting a good deal anyway.

If the headline wasn't powerful then why have a sales department?, Just get some kids to draw one up.