The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday imposed a NT$3 million (US$87,800) fine on French retail giant Carrefour for false advertising in its consumer voucher promotional campaign.
To attract customers, Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福), the nation’s largest hypermarket chain operator, said in an advertising campaign during the Lunar New Year holiday that customers who spent their entire NT$3,600 consumer vouchers at Carrefour would receive NT$7,200 in discount vouchers.
However, Carrefour did not clearly disclose the numerous limits on the use of its discount vouchers, the commission said.
“Many customers were misled by Carrefour’s ads, which only mentioned that the discount vouchers could not be used to purchase Carrefour’s gift vouchers or cigarettes,” FTC commissioner Chou Ya-shu (周雅淑) said yesterday.
Chou said customers did not know that Carrefour’s discount vouchers could also not be used to purchase beer or spirits, nor redeem them for shipping or extensions to home appliance warranties, as the information was printed on the back of the vouchers and could not be known until customers had received them.
Carrefour’s failure to disclose all the information violates the Fair Trade Law (公平交易法), it said.
The fine included a NT$2.5 million fine on PresiCarre Corp (家福) and a NT$500,000 fine on Carrefour Taiwan, Chou said. Carrefour Taiwan is jointly operated by Taiwan’s PresiCarre and France’s Carrefour.
The ruling made Carrefour the first company in Taiwan to be found guilty of using false advertising to benefit from the government’s voucher program.
Carrefour had been charged with false advertising on eight previous occasions. It has been fined nine times for a total of NT$10.43 million, Chou said.
In a statement last night, Carrefour expressed regret and said it would appeal the ruling.
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