The Consumer Law Reform Bill, the first extensive update to the current consumer law in over twenty years, has been opened for submissions.

In some cases, Chrisco was charging customers as much as $800 for cancelling their Christmas hamper orders, the Commerce Commission found.

Vodafone pleaded guilty to breaching the Fair Trading Act in relation to misleading representations about its Vodafone Live internet service.

Consumers struggling with loan repayments as a result of the Canterbury earthquake may be able to use a consumer law to get financial relief from “unforeseen hardship”.

“Under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, in certain circumstances debtors have the right to ask for a variation of their repayment obligations under a consumer credit contract on the grounds of hardship,” said Graham Gill, Commerce Commission enforcement branch manager.

An overseas-based company that ran a series of text to win trivia competitions has pleaded guilty to breaching the Fair Trading Act by not properly disclosing all the terms and conditions related to the competitions – which saw many entrants inadvertently sign up for $15 in premium txt messages before they could opt out.

TMG Asia Pacific was convicted, fined $125,000 and ordered to pay court costs of $1560 in the Auckland District Court yesterday.

From July 2006 to January 2007, the company promoted and operated a series of 14 text trivia competitions in New Zealand.

The Commerce Commission’s decision to delay an announcement on whether to prosecute ANZ National Bank over its promotion of failed ING funds is not acceptable, says ACT Party commerce spokesman John Boscawen.

“Thousands of people have lost money in this collapse and all were expecting an answer next week,” he said.

Commerce Commission chairman Mark Berry earlier told Parliament’s Commerce Committee that its investigation had been delayed until mid April, two weeks later than planned.