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Comments on: UK mulls blanket ban on unfair commercial practices

broadband marketing should dissappear then 

Posted Tuesday 12th June 2007 10:54 GMT

>> Wrong information about availability

So claims about how fast broadband will actually be will fall into that category, getting rid of the marketing that assumes everyone lives on top of the exchange and has dedicated fibre connections.

Also unlimited should go too? Surely limiting something described as unlimited is misleading?

Is this a sneaky way of nixing the Distance Selling Regulations? 

Posted Tuesday 12th June 2007 11:06 GMT

As part of the "tidy up" of legislation. Hmm. I bet there's a bunch of internet mail-order companies who would love that sucker to get buried.

No comment 

Posted Tuesday 12th June 2007 11:29 GMT

"The Government has asked retailers to comment "

Wouldn't it do better to start by asking consumers?

How many banks and building societies are going to come up with useful examples of unfair practices that should be prohibited, like paying lower interest rates to existing customers.

How many insurance companies will suggest that renewing customers should never be asked to pay more than new customers?

There are countless examples of blatantly unfair business practices such as the above, and if any legislation is to have any teeth it has got to start by identifying them and ensuring that those practices will be STAMPED OUT, not merely dressed up with legislation that allow the perpetrators to clarify their wording in a manner which preserves the legality of the unfair practice instead of preventing it altogether.

Are you watching Orange? 

Posted Tuesday 12th June 2007 11:55 GMT

"if it or its overall presentation in any way deceives or is likely to deceive the typical consumer"

... Does this mean now then, that when Orange sell me, for example, a Nokia 6680, that they have to actually give me the Nokia 6680, and not the bastardized version that they actually gave me?

Could be interesting if... 

Posted Tuesday 12th June 2007 12:25 GMT

... enough people mailorder cd's/dvds from outside the EU because of industry price fixing... errr... region coding, etc, sorry... it then becomes an action of a typical consumer and the record/movie industry becomes a criminal.

They have taken a transactional decision based on the business practises...

... and then I woke up

Call me a cynic. 

Posted Wednesday 13th June 2007 06:56 GMT

Asking "the industry" to comment is surely just checking with them to ensure the proposed rules wont affect what they do already; which at the end of the day is exactly what "the industry" will be checking when they review it. Of course the industry is good and the proposed legislation is aimed at crooks and hucksters...

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