Accent Holidays misled public to promote time shares
Published29 Aug 1997
The Auckland District Court was today strongly critical of Accent Holidays Ltd when it fined it $25,000 for breaching the Fair Trading Act by making misleading claims to promote time shares.
Accent Holidays, which has traded under various names including Lako Mai Resort Marketing, was prosecuted by the Commerce Commission.
Judge P.F.Boshier described Accent's tele-marketing as intentionally deceptive, blatant, widespread and capable of causing hardship.
He said that more gullible members of the public could have been drawn into buying something that they did not want and could not afford.
"It chose not to use the word 'time share', by its own admission, because of perceived resistance to the concept. It therefore disguised the concept and endeavoured to lure people under a guise," Judge Boshier said.
Commission Chairman Dr Alan Bollard said: "Accent Holidays deliberately made misleading claims to entice people to its promotions. People were invited to travel expos, but instead got a hard sell time share promotion.
"Accent Holidays was working on the basis that once in the door, people are more likely to buy, and it was prepared to deliberately mislead people to get them into its promotions."
Dr Bollard said that the Commission had previously warned Accent Holidays that it was at risk of breaching the Act, and had received 40 complaints about the promotion.
Accent Holidays ran its promotion from offices in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch by regularly going through telephone books and ringing listed telephone subscribers.
Its staff had a set script to use, inviting people to a "holiday and travel expo at ... where you'll see a couple of holiday videos and have a chat about your past holiday experiences and where you would like to go in the future".
"This was not a holiday and travel expo," Dr Bollard said. "It was an hour-and-a-half long time share promotion."
The company admitted that telling people over the telephone that they were being asked to attend a time share promotion would have had a drastic effect on its business.
"There is nothing wrong with using new ideas for advertising or promotions to attract customers - that's an important part of healthy competition," Dr Bollard said. "The problem is when promotions are misleading or deceptive.
"If customers respond to misleading information, then they lose out, competitors lose out and competition is distorted.
"In this case, Accent Holidays' promotions reached many people right across the country, its actions were deliberate and Accent Holidays ignored a warning. It has now paid the price for that."
Media contact: Fair Trading Manager Rachel Leamy
Phone work (04) 479 0908, cellphone 021 661 104, home (04) 479 6334
