ACCC clears Jeep but NSW Gaming officials confirm initial probe into competition
The New South Wales Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing (OLGR) has confirmed it is probing the Jeep competition which sparked a barrage of criticism from unhappy members of the public.
OLGR told Mumbrella it has received a formal complaint and is “conducting an initial assessment” into how the competition was run. A full investigation will be launched if rules are found to have been breached.
Consumer Affairs in Victoria also said it was aware of “consumer concerns” surrounding the competition but has yet to receive a complaint.
But Jeep is in the clear from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) which found it had made no “substantial” breaches of Australian Consumer Law.
Jeep’s ‘World’ Most Remote Dealership’ competition ran earlier this month and offered people the chance to buy one of ten vehicles being sold at $10,000 each. To enter people had to register via an app and then phone a number at a specified time. Almost 50,000 people signed up with 30,000 hopefuls telephoning.
However, some phone numbers for the competition were posted online on the Whirlpool forum, while some registrants complained no number appeared on the app itself, but rather a “call now” button which did not work on tablets. Jeep said the app was only designed for mobile phones. Others have claimed some winners were able to call before 9am, when the lines were due to open.
A spokesperson for OLGR in NSW said: “The Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing confirms it has received a complaint in regards to the competition and is conducting an initial assessment.
“Should this initial assessment identify suspected contraventions or non compliance with the Lotteries and Art Unions Act then an investigation will be conducted.”
The ACCC said enquiries had been made into the competition after it became aware of “consumer concerns”.
“But it did not find evidence that Jeep substantially breached provisions of the Australian Consumer Law,” a spokeswoman said.
Victoria consumer affairs said it is “aware of consumer concerns relating to the Jeep “Remote Dealership” promotion, however has not received complaints regarding this matter”.
“Australian Consumer Law prohibits businesses from making false, misleading or deceptive representations and concerns may arise where consumers are misled into error from representations used as part of the promotion of products and services,” the department said.
Queensland Office of Fair Trading declined to say whether it had received complaints as “a complaint alone does not constitute a breach of fair trading legislation.”
“It may be unfair to the business to disclose whether we have received complaints, or how many. Doing so may jeopardise any investigation that we may be conducting into the business,” the OFT said.
But it advised consumers to contact officials if they believe businesses make “false or misleading claims about competitions and prizes”.
“Under the Australian Consumer Law, if a business promotes a competition where there are free giveaways, prizes or discounted products, they must not mislead the audience about the items on offer or the chances of receiving these items,” it said.
Steve Jones
What this is good news, and a positive story. Why no comments??
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good news stories are like kryptonite to trolls
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Hardly good news that it did not ‘ substantially’ breach consumer laws.
Doesn’t change the fact that the whole episode was a monumental stuff up that has damaged the Jeep brand.
You can’t now just tell 30,000 consumers that they are wrong to be displeased and that it was actually all fine……
Jeep have yet to offer any sort of open apology or admission.
They should at least confirm publicly that none of the winners received the phone number in advance because social media is rife with stories of winners with an advantage of the number the night before.
If it was all fine and none of the winners had an inside track why not come out and say this.
The longer they fail to acknowledge this the more suspicious the outraged become.
There are a very vocal group of the disaffected who don’t seem to want to let this matter rest.
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oops.. looks like the trolls still found a way to have a jab
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I must be seriously missing something. Since when does the number of disgruntled, not even a few hundred if you were to read all the comments, equate to 30,000 displeased consumers? OK you entered a competition and didn’t win, get over it and move on with life. When did our lovely tolerant and happy go luck nation turn into a bunch of whingers? Something we quite happily accused another nation of once, yet now we are noted for being just that.
Did all 50,000 hopefulls that signed up read all the detail of the competition? Did all 30,000 that dialled in follow the instructions that they had clearly read? Out of sheer curiosity, anyone know what happens to a phone number when 30,000 individuals all call the one number in the same nano second?
Is Jeep’s reputation damaged? I fail to see why or how, I don’t own a Jeep but I did ask myself when one of the ads was aired why I didn’t look at one. I do know a first time owner of the brand new Jeep Cherokee and he loves it. His daughter did plan on entering the competition until we read the detail and found that she wouldn’t be able to follow all the steps, she isn’t whinging.
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Oh Angi, you are missing something! Please read the other stories and comments about this topic and you will maybe understand that this isn’t about people who didn’t win or being upset that their call wasn’t answered or didn’t realise they had to follow some steps. If that was the case, whiners indeed. But it was about a competition that was flawed, not run on an even playing field and had significant technical failures.
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BJG, yes as I said I am missing something however it is always easier to sling mud or blame the organiser of a competition or the brand for what peopel have said was a flawed, badly thought out, poorly organised, bad ap and so on we can be here for ever trying to pickup all the terminology. I personally think the campaign was great, loved the idea of the competition and actually thought it was great fun. Having said that and knowing how ‘fickle’ IT and Networks in Australia are, any competiton that is dependant on those two areas is prone to let’s say ‘issues’ for want of a better word that are beyond the control of the organisers or the brand. As long as the Ad industry continues to use them to get the message out perhaps it should consider what the finance industry does that the internet is subject to flaws that are beyond their control and no responsibility is held for failures/issues due to them. To give you an example 2 of us using Telstra and Optus networks can be standing next to each other waiting for an update on the same ap for the same reason and in most cases we will not get that update in the same instance, actually I always am several seconds if not minutes behind the other person obviously I picked the wrong network.
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This is not true I faxed my complaint directly to consumer affairs Victoria
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Definately a flawed process. I did not get the number until about 4 minutes past nine, was supposed to be 9.00.20, it came on screen with a ‘call number’, when the ‘call now’ number was clicked, it rang the last number dialled on my phone. After about 200 calls it shut down without explanation. I was a Jeep owner, WAS! drove the bastard off the pier!!!! or should have.
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