TV Shop fined over Transforma ladder claims

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Claiming ladders could handle a heavier load than they really could has landed a retailer with a $153,000 fine.

Brand Developers (BDL), which also trades as TV Shop, has pleaded guilty in the Auckland District Court to five charges under the Fair Trading Act. 

It wrongly claimed its Transforma ladders could carry 180kg and sold ladders in breach of an Unsafe Goods notice that prohibited their sale.

It is the first time the Commerce Commission has prosecuted a company for selling or advertising a product covered by an Unsafe Goods Notice.

BDL claimed TR24 and TR25 Transforma ladders complied with the Australian and New Zealand standard to a rating of 180kg but they had not been tested against all the parts of that standard. 

In Commerce Commission testing, one of the ladders failed.

BDL continued to sell the ladders without ensuring they had been fully tested, even after the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) issued an Unsafe Goods Notice preventing the sale of multipurpose ladders that did not meet the standard.

Commissioner Anna Rawlings said the ladders were first introduced to the market with a load rating of 120kg.

But by the time BDL was trading in March 2010, that had changed to 180kg, with advertisements and labels on the ladder claiming they could carry the heavier load.

'BDL's conduct put the safety of consumers at risk,' she said.

'The 180kg load rating provided a point of difference in advertising the ladders but BDL did not carry out the required testing to ensure that the ladders were safe to use at that weight. And they weren't.'

About 7800 ladders were sold through infomercials and to New Zealand suppliers.

The ladders were advertised on a number of television channels.

BDL has been contacting customers who purchased the ladders from it directly to inform them the load rating has been downgraded.

The issue only applies to ladders sold before January last year.