Jon Duffy: Consumer NZ chief executive on the Commerce Commission filing charges against Noel Leeming over ‘Price Promise’ claims

Consumer NZ says complaints against Noel Leeming go beyond its price-matching policy. 

The tech retailer is facing criminal charges brought by the Commerce Commission - accusing it of making misleading promises. 

Noel Leeming's strongly rejecting the claim, and says it will vigorously defend its stance. 

But Consumer NZ chief executive, Jon Duffy, says the company's also charged with misleading people about their consumer rights. 

"If people are taking things back to the store and getting mislead about their rights to a refund or a replacement, that's very concerning".

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now, the Commerce Commission is continuing its run of prosecuting retailers.
It's now filed criminal charges against Noel Leaming and this
is over its price promise. Now. The price promise is
the policy where if you find a product cheaper somewhere else,
Noel Leming will match the price for you. John Duffy
is the CEO of Consumer New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
A John, Hey, here the ho's going.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm very well, thank you. Do you have any concerns
around the price promise.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Here?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
I mean it is a high risk strategy for retailers
because you know, there's there's lots that can come in
between your ability to offer the product and the customers
ability to find that elsewhere, including online, including you know, offshore.
There's lots of there's lots of caveats that businesses need
to do when they're offering these promises. And if those caveats,

(01:03):
if that list of caveats gets too long, you know,
agencies the Commus Commission can start getting concerned that actually
maybe the headline offer that it's a price matching promise
might not be as true as you'd hope it would be.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
That sounds really subjective though, I mean, there's no there's
no objective way to dealt with the list is too long?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Is there? Yeah? Maybe that that was a bad example,
but if you if you get good examples of caveats
that make the headline advertising misleading. For example, if you
are the only stockist of a product, if you have
an exclusive deal with a brand that can't be bought
or a product that can't be bought anywhere else, and

(01:45):
you say we'll we'll match this price elsewhere, well that's
pretty misleading because you can't buy it elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, fair enough, do you do you ever see? I
mean they said that they had about two hundred and
fifty thousand people actually use the price promise between twenty
nineteen and twenty twenty one, So if you count all
three years, then what's that about eighty thousand people a year?
Is that reasonable?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, it kind of shows if if the price profice
is misleading, it actually shows the scale of the problem.
So if they're putting that much volume through and they're
misrepresenting the terms here, well that's a huge number of
people who have been impacted by what could be misleading conduct.
We'll have to see how the case pans out to
see what the court decides, but we should also remember

(02:27):
that this is although I've noticed nol Lemmings have come
out and made comments refuting the allegations, but they're really
only focusing on this price promise part of the Commission's prosecution,
which is only one part of kind of three heads.
They've also been pained for potentially misleading or allegedly misleading
people about their rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act, which

(02:49):
is really interesting when you look at our complaints data
about nol Lemming, the vast majority of those complaints relate
to products that have broken or are faulty. So if
people are taking stuff back to the store and getting
mislead about their rights to a refund or a replacement,
that's very concerning.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
John, Thanks so much, John Duffy, Consumer CEO.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
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