The Good Guys has been ordered to pay $13.5 million in penalties for misleading promotions and for failing to provide store credit to more than 20,000 eligible customers.Â
The Federal Court ordered The Good Guys Discount Warehouses (Australia) Pty Ltd to pay the penalties for 116 promotions that ran between July 2019 and August 2023.
“We took this court action because we were concerned that The Good Guys had failed to adequately disclose some really key conditions attached to these store credit promotions,” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
In those promotions, The Good Guys offered customers store credit — also called StoreCash in some promotions — if they spent a minimum amount, purchased a specific brand or product, or used a particular payment method.
The amount of credit varied between $10 and $1,000, depending on the promotion.
One of the store credit promotions. (ACCC)
The Good Guys admitted that its advertisements for the store credit promotions did not disclose, or adequately disclose, the expiry period of the store credit.
In some promotions that period was less than 10 days and in most cases customers could only get a store credit if they opted in to marketing communications from The Good Guys.
“The chance to earn store credit may have encouraged some consumers to make a purchase at The Good Guys they otherwise may not have made or to choose this retailer over others,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
“We were concerned some of those consumers may not have done so had they been aware of all the conditions.”
She added that businesses “must clearly disclose any key terms and conditions or limitations to avoid misleading consumers” when advertising promotional offers.
The Good Guys also admitted that it did not provide store credit within the timeframe it specified to about 21,500 consumers.
The Federal Court ordered The Good Guys to provide redress to customers who participated in the promotions by now providing them with store credit with a longer expiry period.
All eligible customers will be contacted by The Good Guys for redress, the ACCC said.
Any customer who did not receive their store credit due to not being signed up to marketing material has been remediated, according to the ACCC.
The ACCC said The Good Guys co-operated in the process of investigation, admitted liability, and agreed to make joint submissions, including in relation to penalties to the Federal Court.
“The Good Guys takes its compliance with the law very seriously and has worked cooperatively with the ACCC to resolve the matter,” CEO Terry Smart said in a statement.
“The Good Guys has always sought to provide value and benefits to its customers and has always prided itself on its high levels of trust with consumers.”
ABC