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I am about to submit this complaint to the comcom / advertising standards authority and would like some feedback / opinions from the geekzone community:
Advertising Standards and Business Practices Complaint to the Commerce Commission of New Zealand.Misleading advertising by Xtra Ltd in relation to the advertised service Go LargeSubmitted by Ray Taylor
About the product:
Go large is a service to provide an internet connection via Telecoms DSL network to a residential customer. It offers unlimited data transfer over the service plan and at the downstream (data transfer speed to the customers premises) theoretical maximum line speed. This varies on a user by user basis due to the telephone line distance from the Telecom exchange. The average user would expect between 1.5 to 8 mbps (megabits per second). The upstream (data traveling from the customers premises to the internet) speed is throttled / limited by Telecom to a maximum of 128 kbps or .128 mbps.
Limitations of the Go Large plan: As part of this service plan, Telecom and Xtra place limits at peak times of the day. Within the hours of 4pm to midnight, a customer may not exceed any more than 700 megabytes of data transfer over their Go Large internet service plan. This is outlined in their Fair Use agreement. At the same time, Telecom and Xtra place a throttle and limit the speed of certain data types traveling over the service plan. The list of data types that has speed limitations can be found buried within the xtra website and accessible by clicking on a small link, or here:http://jetstream.xtra.co.nz/xtratools/1,8752,205450-204362,00.html This is called their traffic management policy. Customers most likely to sign up for the Go Large service plan are the same customers that are most likely to use the throttled data types and applications found within this list.
False Advertising:I would like to refer to the following paragraph found on the commerce commission website: http://www.comcom.govt.nz/FairTrading/TradePracticesCoveredbytheFairTradingAct/falseormisleadingadvertising.aspx
Fine print is also often used in contracts. The Act has a much broader application than contract law. In a number of cases, courts have decided that fine-print conditions in a contract cannot be relied upon to avoid liability under the Act if false or misleading statements have been made previously to encourage the signing of the contract.
The paragraph outlines that businesses cannot rely on fine print when conveying a message condition to their customers. In the following case, Telecom has done exactly that. They buried fineprint, specifically the traffic management or the fair use policy, which was not presented to the customer before they signed up on the agreement. On Monday, November 13, 2006, Xtra Ltd advertised on their website http://www.xtra.co.nz/ the following banner. I have been unable to replicate the full animated banner because the Xtra web development team have made it impossible to copy, in case it may be used in a complaint, and can be easily changed. The banner consists of the following frames, pushed in front of each other by an overweight or large sumo wrestler.
(See resource picture 1)
http://www.teamparodee.com/xtracomplaint/picture1.jpg
At no point within the advertisement banner did Xtra state or show that their 700mb Fair Use policy or the limitations of the Traffic Management policy were applied to this service. The user is enticed to click on the banner, taking him or her to the following page for more information.
(see resource page 1 http://www.teamparodee.com/xtracomplaint/page1/offerxtra.htm)
I would like to draw attention to the following paragraph on Page 1
It's super fast
All Xtra Broadband plans are at Maximum speed
- as fast as your line allows.
Even at this point where Xtra are listing the features of their broadband service, they still do not make any mention of the Fair Use or Traffic Management policy. Near the middle of Page 1, there is a banner with 2 clearly defined buttons. They are labeled
Terms of offer and Sign up to Xtra today. If you cannot see this banner, a copy of it in a static image form is found in the resources as http://www.teamparodee.com/xtracomplaint/offerpage.png
A user can click on Terms of offer and be taken to this page:(See resource page 2http://www.teamparodee.com/xtracomplaint/page2/termsofoffer.htm )
The customer has now just been given 3 stages of information about the offer: advertisement, summary details, and a page titled Terms of offer. In none of these 3 stages was the customer told of the Fair Use or Traffic Management policy. The customer can then click their back button and return to Page 1 and then click Sign up to Xtra today. This will begin the process to order the service. Telecom have also hidden a link on Page 1. If a user is on Page 1, and clicks on the Go Large banner at the top-middle of the page, they are taken to page 3. This banner looks in No Way like a button or clickable link and is deceptively hiding the information behind it.
(See resource page 3http://www.teamparodee.com/xtracomplaint/page3/golargedetails.htm )
Page 3 outlines that the Go Large service plan does indeed have the Fair use and Traffic Management policy applied to it, however most users who have come from the initial stage one advertisement (picture 1) are not presented with page 3 at all. Back on page 1, after clicking sign up and following the process there on in, they are presented with the Xtra terms of service / contract / fine print, where it does state the policies that apply. It is widely known that many users will not read through the pages and pages of this contract and will simply accept them without knowing.
Because of this, Xtra Ltd. have demonstrated that they are in fact relying on Fine Print to hide information that is clearly the reverse of, and not portrayed within the Main Message of the advertisement. This is a breach of the Fair Trading Act.
A throttled/ slowed connection and limited data allowance is the Complete Opposite of Unlimited internet usage and Maximum download speeds as fast as your phone line allows (as stated in resource picture 1)
Ray Taylor
(Removed personal details * see below* )
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As I said I would like to know what your comments / opinions are on this matter.
(Moderator Edit (BG) - Removed personal contact (Phone and address) details. Please refrain from posting such details as potentially anyone including people you don't want can collect and use those details)
Retired Mod
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