Maybe they can get a good voucher deal on legal representation?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has commenced legal proceedings against group-buying site Scoopon in the Federal Court of Australia, accusing the site of misleading consumers and businesses with its service.
The ACCC will allege that Scoopon misled consumers in regards to the refundability of vouchers, while also alleging that businesses were misled over claims that up to 30 per cent of vouchers would actually be redeemed.
Here are the allegations from an ACCC statement:
The ACCC alleges that Scoopon misled consumers regarding their ability to redeem vouchers, their refund rights, and the price of goods advertised in relation to some of its deals. The ACCC also alleges that Scoopon represented to businesses that there was no cost or risk involved in running a deal with Scoopon, when a fee was payable to Scoopon.
Further, it is alleged that Scoopon misled businesses by claiming that between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of vouchers would not be redeemed when there was no reasonable basis for this representation.
This case will surely reveal a more than a few interesting tidbits about the way Scoopon operates in Australia. We’ll wait and see what sordid secrets may or may not come out.
Update:
Scoopon have responded to the allegations from the ACCC. Here’s its response in full:
At Scoopon, our number one goal is to connect happy customers with happy business owners so people can enjoy the best of what these businesses have on offer.
As a pioneer of the ever-changing Group Buying industry we have come a long way from being a small business to being one of Australia’s largest Group Buying sites, serving over two million customers.
We have also recognised the need to continuously improve our deal selection and customer service policies.
Since we began, Scoopon has improved its processes for selecting and managing deals to improve our customer experience and is a founding signatory to the ADMA Code of Practice, which is aimed at increasing consumer confidence in dealing with Group Buying platforms.
We will review the ACCC allegations made and work to resolve the issues raised
Republished from Gizmodo
Comments
5 responses to “Scoopon Is Being Sued By The ACCC”
I really don’t like Scoopon, I have used it two times in total but have only been able to get what I paid for once. The time that I was successful was that I didn’t have to redeem anything, it was sent directly to me after the purchase.
The other time it was really shady. I could not get my coupon at the time of the purchase, I had to wait a few days before they would be ready. I assumed that I would receive an email from Scoopon letting me know that my coupon was ready but instead I got silence.
By the time I had realized that I hadn’t heard anything about the deal the short window for being able to redeem the code had expired (only by a day) I immediately reached out to the company and Scoopon in hopes of being able to arrange something but received silence from Scoopon and an apology from the company that they wish they could help buy they weren’t allowed to honour expired codes or provide any separate discounts or deals per some agreement they had made with Scoopon.
I for one, would love to see them BURN!
Go ACCC!
i’d like to see how many businesses are out there that can speak positively about their experiences with coupon style companies, and the campaigns. How many of them went out business, made a loss or actually made money and even scored repeat business. I’d say most would fall under the first.
I also have lost count on the number of people who had a bad experience with either the business or the coupon company, sometimes both. The worst part is that when you try to get a refund, it can become so complicated, its not worth the headache. They count on that.
I think that making it virtually impossible to get a refund is part of the business model. Much like making it virtually impossible to get a mailing cashback.
Scoopon do more to damage businesses than simply misrepresenting redemptions – see this thread on OzBargain:
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/92710
Many of the people there slammed Melbourne Aviation for “profiting” from the deal and misleading customers because people hadn’t redeemed by the expiry date, even though they got nothing for it because Scoopon keeps the money from unused vouchers!