Its latest catalogue proudly proclaims on page 2 that customers can get a free Wii Sports Resort by trading in "2 Wii games"*.
That's right. There's a tiny asterisk which takes you to te bottom of the page in even tinier print - which almost needs a magnifying glass to read - which has a list of rules and requirements and at the end it states:
"Some exclusions may apply, for a detailed list go to www.jbhifi.com.au/games/tradeins"
That's fair enough. There must always be some exceptions or exclusions to offers which seem too good to be true because they usually are!
One parent - a long-time large spending JB HI-FI customer - who thought he was doing the right thing this week by his Wii-fanatic son made a 34km round trip into JB HI-FI's Riverlink store in Ipswich to take advantage of the advertised offer.
He was flatly refused because the 2 exchange Wii games were not in their original packaging!
The young boy was in tears thanks to this insidious and deceptive advertising.
This was hardly classifiable in a legal sense as simply an "exclusion". It was apparently a fundamental requirement of the offer to obtain the free Wii device and should have been clearly and specifically mentioned in the body of the actual advertisement.
This is a new derivative of the old "bait and switch" advertising technique in the 1970s - hook 'em in and try to flog them something else when the original offer is unavailable or wrapped up in a myriad of impossible conditions.
So what does the JB HI-FI website say about the conditions of trade?
Again, in tiny tiny print, customers are told they must provide the original case and manual.
There is nothing about this in the main glossy advertisement which has been used to deliberately suck customers into JB HI-FI stores.
It seems the main trade-in requirement has been deliberately left out to induce customers to come to a store to be told the bad news.
The ACCC needs to crack down on this sort of trickery.
Customers who travel in good faith over long distances are being duped by these fine print exclusion clauses.
JB HI-FI has a legal and moral duty to comply with section 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 which outlaws "misleading or deceptive" conduct in trade or commerce.
The ACCC must take legal action against these unscrupulous practices which are constantly conning Australian consumers.
PAUL TULLY: paul@tully.org.au
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