Issue Date:  -  Friday, 23 July 2004

Millionaire mum seminar outed

Consumer Protection Orders Advertising Changes & Refund Offers

The consumer watchdog has swooped on another property investment seminar that it considered was using potentially misleading advertising.

Oneworld Seminars Pty Ltd in Queensland operates Express Home Improvements, whose ads had been running extensively in WA’s daily and other newspapers. The ads suggested that participants would come out of seminars knowing whether property prices for any area would go up or down.

“We have made misleading advertising one of our priorities as offers of great wealth for doing very little in a short time may lure people into taking gambles they can ill afford”, Consumer Protection Commissioner Patrick Walker said.

“In addition to being unethical, it is also illegal to make misleading public statements and we are out there looking for opportunists and will prosecute where appropriate.

“Bold claims such as ‘from mum to millionaire’ will always attract our interest”, he said.

Following a letter of demand from the Department, Oneworld’s Director Jack Weavers undertook to correct their actions by:

• publishing corrective advertising in the relevant publications;
• contacting participants who registered informing them of the correction;
• providing to Consumer Protection a list of all participants registered to date; and
• offering refunds to those participants who request one as a result of the correction

The operator has also been asked to substantiate the claims that significant financial wealth has been obtained, often in short periods of time, through property investment.

“We have seen some prompt attention and remedial action from the operator to date and will be monitoring the undertaking and the seminar to ensure compliance”, the Commissioner said.

The ads were initially netted as suspected scams by Consumer Protection’s daily media monitoring program.