Baiting the consumer

Lawrence Mothibi | Tuesday April 5, 2022 06:00

We have seen companies closing doors owing to these challenges. Businesses need good sales to achieve profits and return on investment for shareholders. The challenge businesses face is to convince consumers to buy goods from their store and not from the competitor. This calls for robust marketing strategies. During this survival period, enterprises employ bait or bait-and-switch advertising. Bait or bait-and-switch advertising is defined as “an alluring but deceptive and insincere offer whereby the advertiser does not intend to sell the advertised product or service at the unusually low advertised price” (Concise dictionary). A business that uses bait advertising would advertise goods or services as being available when in actual fact they are not or the advertised goods are low in quantities.

The media advert would show goods at low prices and unsuspecting consumers would, believing goods to be available, rush to the store only to be confronted with excuses. In some instances, consumers will only find goods that are different from those advertised. The business would in the process convince consumers that the available goods are of same quality as those on the advert or the advertised were sold out. Bait advertising is mostly practised by big businesses, which normally have extensive marketing strategies.

According to the Consumer Protection Act, 2018, (“the Act”) bait advertising is an illegal conduct and anyone who is found guilty of the offence will face possible prosecution with a possibility of fine not exceeding of P50,000 or a civil imprisonment for a term not more than three (3) years or both penalties. Section 7(1) states: “A supplier shall not advertise any particular goods or services as being available at a specified price in a manner that may result in consumers being misled or deceived as to the actual availability of those goods or services from that supplier, at the advertised price”.

Section 7(2): “A supplier who advertises goods and services with the intention not to supply the reasonably expected quantity of the goods or services meet the public demand, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction, to a fine not exceeding P50,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to both”. In accordance with the Act, it is against the law for a supplier to advertise goods or services as being available in the shop while they are not able to demonstrate the availability or reasonable quantities of those goods at the price advertised.

The offence hinges on the availability of the goods or reasonable quantities of the goods at the advertised price within the specified period. In determining the commission of the offence, it would have to be proven that the supplier advertised goods, that the goods or reasonable quantities of goods were available or if sold that they were sold to consumers at the advertised price, that the sale happened within the period advertised.

According to the Act, the supplier who places an advertisement for goods and services will be required to include the duration on which the goods or services will be available. The Act further outlines that if the supplier does not specify the period for which the goods or services will be available, the goods and services should be deemed to be available for one month from the date of the advertisement. In the instance of the car industry, an example of bait advertising would be a garage advertising on Facebook or any print media selling 15 Toyota Corolla models, with low mileage but only to find that the garage has had only two (2) models of the car specified in the advertised within the period indicated.

The Authority has since its inception as the Competition and Consumer Authority not received a complaint of bait-and-switch advertising. This, however, does not mean the offence is not taking place.

It could be due to low detection or consumers not reporting such wrongful acts. Now that the consumer is aware that businesses may engage in these types of bait advertising to dupe them to buy slow moving goods in the store, be warned and do the right thing - report these wrongs.