Teaser rates on Broadband

LeChienMefiant

Has there been any attempt to tackle the teaser rates advertised by broadband providers in Ireland? In Australia the total minimum contracted price must be prominently displayed alongside the contract length. In the UK the ASA has been working with providers to improve the situation.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/04/broadband-ad-claims-asa-price
https://www.asa.org.uk/~/media/Files/ASA/Public%20affairs/Broadband%20announcement%20briefing%20paper%20ASA.ashx

ED E

ASA here is an industry body and totally toothless.

LeChienMefiant

What about consumer agency?

boardzz

I think the advertised costs in Ireland are quite fair. They give the small price for first few months but state in print the price after.
These articles seem to be referring to the advertising in UK of price not including line rental.

They will advertise the product as 10 pound per month without the line rental costs involved.

LeChienMefiant

I think your expectations are low. That level of investigation to find the true cost is not reasonable. The introductory price is completely meaningless. IIRC Eir had a recent offer where the true cost was something like four times the introductory cost. That is crazy.

EDIT: In fact I think it's directly analogous to the UK case. The advertised cost is not the true cost.

plodder

Definitely agree. It's so annoying. Standards should be aiming towards comparability of products, and the only way to do that would be to display at same level of prominence, total committed contract cost, and maybe that cost averaged per month.

LeChienMefiant

I think Australia is a perfect model, we should just copy and paste:

The infringement notices were issued because the ACCC had reasonable grounds to believe that iiNet’s advertisements contravened the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) by failing to prominently state the total minimum price of the service.

iiNet’s advertisements appeared on a tram and billboard in metropolitan Melbourne in November 2014. The advertisements displayed a monthly price of $69.95 for iiNet’s Naked Broadband 250GB Plan. The total minimum price was included in the advertisement but the ACCC considered that it was not displayed in a prominent way, as required by the ACL.

“Consumers must be able to understand the true cost of an advertised product so that they can make informed purchasing decisions,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.

“Businesses must ensure that when they advertise part of the price of a good or service, the total minimum price is also prominently displayed.”

“Prominence means that the total minimum price can be easily seen and strikes the attention of the consumer. In assessing whether the total minimum price is prominent, it is important to consider the context in which the advertisement appears - for example if the advertisement is on a moving vehicle, where consumers may only be able to see the advertisement momentarily.”

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/iinet-limited-pays-204000-in-penalties-following-accc-infringement-notices-for-naked-broadband-plan-advertisements

LeChienMefiant

I submitted a query to ComReg, let's see if they have any interest.

editorsean

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

I think your expectations are low. That level of investigation to find the true cost is not reasonable. The introductory price is completely meaningless. IIRC Eir had a recent offer where the true cost was something like four times the introductory cost. That is crazy.

Indeed, saw something similar on the Speedtest.net website:



I don't recall the banner saying anywhere that this was going to be an introductory offer, so I clicked it which took me to these offers (these images are resized down crops):



Unless I missed something, I don't recall Eir ever having bundles that were normally €30 or €35 after the introductory offer. Unlike other providers offering introductory prices, there's no '*' either beside the promotional prices either, let alone anything else clearly visible on that page saying these are introductory prices.

About midway down the page, there was the following button to see more detail, which I would expect be about fair usage limits, broadband speed and so on:



However, it was hiding the vital information:



Indeed a few people asked me at work about Eir's €30 bundle and were surprised that it was only introductory.

I don't think they would get away with that in Australia...

plodder

That's a fairly shocking example all right. The "normally" has no relevance at all to what you end up paying and might make you think that is the post-introductory price.

The advertised rates were 45, 25 and 35 euro. Under the Australian system, the hidden costs would be shown through the total contract prices of 810, 1125 and 1215 respectively. Personally, I think the average monthly cost would be clearer again, because they'd only start messing with the contract period then to make it look cheaper.

So, the average prices would be 45, 62.50 and 67.50 respectively.

I had something similar. Signed up to Eir at €45 per month but only realised when I got the first bill that it was an 18 month introductory offer and the actual price would be €55 per month after that. Probably €62 now thanks to Eir Sport. That's more than what I was paying VM for 360Mb.

LeChienMefiant

I tried to get Conor Pope of the Irish Times interested but no joy. Any media interest would be great.

LeChienMefiant

ED E wrote: »

ASA here is an industry body and totally toothless.

Comreg responded to say they have no remit. Is it pointless complaining to ASAI?

plodder

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

Comreg responded to say they have no remit. Is it pointless complaining to ASAI?

You won't know until you try.

Or you could try the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (the CCPC), but I'd say it's more up the ASAI's street.