Sleigh in to Coles or sleight of hand by Flybuys ? Have we really come a long way, maybe ?

Just before Christmas I got an email from Flybuys aka Loyalty Pacific Pty. Ltd that sent my lawyer antennas buzzing.

The subject line was

Sleigh your next in-store shop at Coles with an Instant $10 off.

Now, as a lawyer (and Ukrainian one at that), I love a bargain when I get sent one so I dutifully read the email (I know, if its free I'm the product) .

As background, I got a distinction for the old 4 unit maths for my HSC so I figured I knew how to add up on my fingers and toes, albeit it was so long ago that Pythagoas might as well have been the teacher.

I also has read a bit about the Fair Trading Act and the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) and have has some notable successes at the NSW NCAT, so assume the some hapless lawyer at Flybuys had reviewed this email and ticked it as complying with the ACL.

So having dutifully read on, I was a bit puzzled as to this next bit in the email.

Get $10 off your in-store shop instantly this Christmas

That’s ‘Great value. Hands down.’

Did you know you’ve got over $50 worth of Flybuys points that you could redeem across multiple in-store shops this Christmas??If you spend $10 or more in-store at Coles and scan your Flybuys, you can enjoy an instant $10 off your in-store shop at Coles by redeeming 2,000 points.*?Just remember, you can only redeem 2,000 points once a day per Flybuys account.

I read this a few time and even used Google translate (English to English) just in case I had missed something in the interpretation.

So the deal appeared to be

a) Drive to Coles (instore only)

b) Spend at least $10

c) Redeem 2000 of your already hard earned Flybuy points; and

d) as your reward, get $10 off using (your already reaned redeemed Fly buy points)

Net result - scammed ?

Some thought crossed my mind

• Did I really need to drive to Coles to spend $10 to redeem my very own 2000 flybuy points to "get an Instant $10 off", being mine already as a good Coles consumer.
• Why did I need to spend $10 at all ?
• Was it really true that I could only redeemed 2000 point per day given most of the items on Flybuys were more than 2000 points (eg Naked Wines Cellar Stokcer 15 bundle is 142, 857 points ?) .
• Was this like the Goldmark 50% off sale that was always 50% off, or the more recent Emma Sleep "strikethrough" sale, which the ACCC said were never actually sold at the original price, ever, or maybe the action the ACCC took against eHarmony about is "free" dating site, which was never free.

I figured surely Flybuys / Coles would not condone such egregious conduct, given it was just before Xmas, so sent off an email to the only email I could find, being the [email protected] as it seems these large corporates never give out emails for their legal departments (probably would get too many) but the privacy bods dob them out as they just can't get anough emails (or in my experience, just forward them to the legal department anyway).

I've also learnt from past experience that if you follow the rules and call the call centre to complain, like the old quality saying, as its not on paper it does not exist, and so you never get any result, or a any record that you actually called in the first place. Try it some time and see if the random "team member" you get can read back the prior call complaint.

Its a bit like (Jean-Baptiste) Alfonse Karr (no, he is not a bamboo species like Google thinks) said - Plus ?a change, plus c'est la même chose. (The more things change, then more they are the same).

The response I got further puzzled me

Hi Mark,

This offer refers to using points that you have already built up.

We thank you again for your feedback and will ensure this is passed onto the relevant team. We hope that next email offer is right up your alley and we appreciate your continued support to our program.

If you have any further queries, please call us on 13 1116 Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm, AEST (excluding national public holidays).

Kind regards,

The Flybuys Team

eg Go away, thanks for paying my salary. I guess at least it was truthful.

I never got a response as to who the "revelant team", might be, but assume its manager is Dust(er) Bin.

Anyway, I thought I should ask the ACCC to see if this was in fact potential "misleading and deceptive conduct", or even better "bait advertising", both of which I recall were very naughty (it was Xmas after all) under the Australian Consumer Law, albiet my prior experience with the ACCC is that they rarely get out of bed unless its worth $10M or so but calculated that as Flybuy says it has around 8.6 Million members, so at say 50% at $10 each it was a potential $43M, so I thought I might have a chance.

That said, Flybuys did suck up to the ACCC back in 2019, touting its "ongoing commitment to transparency and fairness and where its current practices are broadly aligned with the recommendations of the ACCC" - https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Loyalty%20Pacific%20%28flybuys%29%20-%20October%202019.pdf.

I do like use of the phrase used of "broadly aligned" as it suggests compliance with the law is somewhat optional if, maybe, it does not suit the marketing message (or someone's bonus calculation).

Or maybe since 2019 Flybuys is in a land that time forgot.

Anyway, the ACCC did send me a lovely "We received your report" email and said they will aim to be in touch in 15 business days (from 18 /12) , although they did say they were currently experiencing a high volume of contacts". Maybe contacts from other Flybuy members outraged by the same sleight of hand email ?

Its now business day 10 so I'm waiting with baited breath (sorry, bad pun on bait advertising).

Suffice to say, I suspect the ACCC has better things to do, like giving on line reviewers a hard time as it seems 1 out of 3 reviews are fake https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-and-promotions/online-product-and-service-reviews and https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/scrutiny-of-influencers-and-businesses-for-misleading-advertising-and-online-reviews-continues

I guess I won't be giving Flybuys a glowing review even thought it would be truthful (unless of course they offer me some points to go away).