MSE News: Groupola reprimanded over misleading iPhone 4 sale

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"A watchdog has taken action after the site heavily promoted an iPhone 4 offer when there were only eight available ..."

Read the full story:
Groupola reprimanded over misleading iPhone 4 sale

Mark_Hewitt

The issue of companies reviewing their own product on review sites is rife - especially with the likes of hotel reviews.

But they are usually very easy to spot, as they aren't written like a normal reviewer would write them. Even when I love a particular place or product I can always find at least one downside worth mentioning.

fuzzybear01

I know a lot of people were also unhappy with the Amazon Black Friday deals for a similar reason, but I'm sure they had more than 8 Wii consoles available!

thepearce

So basically they [OFT] did nothing of substance.

suited-aces

I don't know, that was a pretty stern frown...

Exhortation

Yes, the words "Paddington gave the man his hardest stare..." come to mind.

Degenerate

thepearce wrote: »

So basically they [OFT] did nothing of substance.

Indeed. Despite them telling outright lies:

During the promotion, a sale progress bar at one point indicated over half of the iPhone 4s were still available and above this was a caption stating '202 bought'.

Sounds like they were indicating about 500 phones available. They should be made to subsidise the purchase of £99 iphone4s for the first 500 people who registered. That would be a suitable punishment.

ralph_wilson

What about all these flights advertised at 1p and the like - is this "bait pricing"? If you ever try to get one thev've always already gone!
Why doesn't the O.F.T. sort these out?