Ezibuy gets pinged again

Ezibuy has again been dragged in front of Auckland’s District Court for marketing and selling falsely advertised clothing.

The company plead guilty to breaching the Fair Trading Act, and was fined $8,500 for selling and marketing shawls advertised as silk blend pashmina.

Under testing the product was revealed to be made of cotton and polyester, without any silk or pashmina content whatsoever.

The products were sold at $19.95, well below market valuations of around $400 for a 100 per cent pashmina shawl.

Ezibuy sold 3,870 of the shawls in New Zealand.

The company’s previous run-in with inaccurately labelled product came in August 2007, when it was forced to settle after admitting that mohair throws with “pure mohair piles”, were far from it.

The Commerce Commission’s testing revealed that the throw was 40 per cent acrylic, 30 per cent mohair, 20 per cent nylon and 10 per cent wool.

Ezibuy was fined, and agreed to re-label stock, run corrective advertising and offer customers a full refund.

It was also run over the grill in both cases by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and ordered to follow similar actions.

It’s understood the company is reviewing its purchasing arrangements and now scrutinises products more carefully.

“The Commission expects businesses to put into place proper compliance processes to check that the labeling and marketing of their stock is accurate.  Consumers rightly rely on the information supplied by business to make their purchasing decisions and the onus is on business to ensure that the information supplied is accurate,” Commerce Commission director of fair trading Adrian Sparrow said.

“It is the responsibility of businesses to ensure that the labeling on their products is accurate and, if necessary, to undertake testing to assure themselves that labels and descriptions supplied by manufacturers are correct.”