The Good Guys hit with $13.5m penalty over misleading promotions
The Good Guys, one of Australia’s biggest appliance retailers, has been hit with a massive $13.5 million penalty after the Federal Court found its store credit promotions were misleading. Between July 2019 and August 2023, the company ran 116 different promotions offering store credit — sometimes called “StoreCash” — to customers who met certain conditions. For example, spending a minimum amount, buying a specific brand, or using a certain payment method could have earned customers anywhere between $10 and $1,000 in credit.
On the surface, it all sounded like a great deal. But as it turned out, many of the key conditions were either not properly explained or left out entirely from advertisements. In some cases, the store credit expired in less than 10 days, giving customers very little time to actually use it. To make things worse, in most of the promotions, customers only received the credit if they agreed to remain signed up to The Good Guys’ marketing emails.
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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, better known as the ACCC, decided to step in. According to ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, these offers may have pushed shoppers into making purchases they otherwise would not have made, or into choosing The Good Guys instead of other retailers. The problem, she explained, was that if people had known all the fine print, they might have made very different decisions.
The court also heard that about 21,500 customers never received their promised store credit within the timeframe the company had set. That failure was another serious breach of consumer law. As a result, The Good Guys has now been ordered not just to pay the penalty, but also to provide redress to customers who missed out. This means eligible shoppers will be contacted directly and given store credit with longer expiry dates.
The Good Guys admitted its faults and cooperated with the ACCC throughout the process. The company said it has already taken steps to fix the problem, including remediating customers who were left out simply because they had not agreed to receive marketing material. In a statement, CEO Terry Smart said the business takes compliance very seriously and has always aimed to provide value to customers while maintaining high levels of trust.
But the ACCC’s message is clear: businesses must fully disclose important terms and conditions upfront. If they don’t, they risk not only misleading customers but also facing multimillion-dollar penalties. For consumers, the case is a reminder to always look closely at the fine print of promotional offers, especially when it comes to things like expiry dates and eligibility requirements.
In the end, while The Good Guys has been punished and is now moving to make amends, the ruling sends a strong signal across the retail sector: honesty and transparency in promotions are not optional — they’re the law.
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