Australia Federal Court: Clarion Marketing scam

[El Gringo]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225810373961
Refunds on cards over scam
December 15, 2009

MORE than 100,000 people may be entitled to a refund or compensation after inadvertently signing up for a paid mobile phone service when they checked to see if they had won a scratch card "prize".

The bungled promotion could cost company Clarion Marketing more than $1 million, after a recent Federal Court ruling that found the company engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and that most of the prizes on offer were travel vouchers worth $1.

Clarion Marketing distributed the 10 million scratch cards across Australia via newspapers and magazines from January to October this year. There were two types of cards that invited people to scratch and match three symbols to see if they had won a prize, including one of five Mercedes Kompressors, 10 $10,000 cash prizes, 100 $1000 cash prizes and hundreds of Apple iPods, televisions, digital cameras, home theatre systems and "flexibreak weekend holiday vouchers".

In "extremely small print", the judge noted, the cards noted that a subscription to a service called Moby Planet cost $10 each six days. The service offers ringtones, jokes and games.

More than 114,000 people sent a text message to see what they had won -- at which point they received two text messages at a charge of $5 each and were subscribed to Moby Planet.

The court also heard that all but one of those 114,000-plus people "won" a "travel voucher". One person won $1000 but nobody won a car, other cash prizes, or electronic goods.

Judge John Nicholas said that none of the people was able to avoid being charged the initial subscription fee of $10. He also said the cards were misleading.

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South African scratch card scam
http://www.ecr.co.za/kagiso/content/...Detail&pid=561
identical Australian scratch card scam
http://www.current.com.au/2009/06/15...UFBUKUBPP.html