A lot has been written and said about internet scams.
But what about when you purchase something on the internet and you get what you purchased but it may not do exactly what you think it was supposed to do.
Although not exactly illegal some technical aspects when purchasing some things on the internet could be described as a scam.
An internet definition
“a dishonest scheme; a fraud.”
And the definition of Fraud
“wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”
I assume the financial gain in on behalf of the scammer.
Is not revealing all information about a product or service being dishonest? If so does that mean that possibility all trade is a scan
Quite some time ago after satisfactory purchasing a number of items on the internet I ordered and received some rechargable AA batteries because they were substantially cheaper and had higher stated capacity than what I previously purchase from shops.
When they arrived the first thing I noticed was how ther weigh was a lot less than what the ones I already had. Second they charged very quickly. Then when I used them,I discovered they went flat extremely quickly.
Although they were rechargeable AA batteries they obviously were not the rating that they were advertised on the internet and definitely not what was written on them.
As I had purchased them from an overseas web site, Australian laws did not apply. I will talk about Australian laws later.
So as what had happened to me was not illegal, had I been scammed?
Some time ago 3 terabyte USB drives were being advertised on the Internet for $20.
Actually I've just looked and discovered that 2 terabyte USB drives are still being advertised by a major internet seller for $8.60.
I was a bit suspicious of buying one, but I no other teck savvy people that did buy them and they did show a capacity as advertised.
You could even keep copying data to them, up to the advertised storage capacity,I assume, as I never found anyone that was able to fill one.
Considering hard drives of such capacity would cost more than these USB pen drives, it all sounded very suspicious. As they say, too good to be true.
It turned out that these drives only had a very limited capacity but something was done to them such that they showed a much higher capacity. Basically they just kept on overriding the same part of the storage. For those that bought them, they only found out, when they tried to retrieve the data at some later stage. The data they had saved, just wasn't there.
In this case the devices did exactly as they were advertised.
It could be assumed that if you bought something that had a certain storage capacity, you would imagine you'll be able to retrieve the amount of capacity at some stage in the future.
So was this a scam, considering no dishonesty had taken place?
There is this Latin phrase, caveat emptor, which means let the buyer beware.
According to Wikipedia.
“ The phrase caveat emptor and its use as a disclaimer of warranties arises from the fact that buyers typically have less information than the seller about the good or service they are purchasing. This quality of the situation is known as 'information asymmetry'. Defects in the good or service may be hidden from the buyer, and only known to the seller”
Up until some countries created consumer protection laws, the concept of caveat emptor persisted.
Where consumer laws do exist they are a warranty as to the reliability of the product or services.
Of course consumer laws only exist in the country you reside in. If, via the Internet, you buy products from another country, those consumer laws may not apply.
If you are aware caveat emptor, buyer beware, and you buy from overseas in these previous examples,have you been scammed?
Car fuel consumption
I've seen a number of internet advertisements showing photos of strange things being poured into the petrol inlet of cars. Obviously to create some curiosity.
That worked so I went and had a look at what was all about. Some device that you could plug into your car that according to the website dramatically reduced your fuel consumption.
Being very suspicious I Googled the name of the product. Turns out it's a device that plugs into where mechanics normally check to see if ther is fault in your car.
Are YouTube video the dead a breakdown of the device showed that all it did was flash a small LED globe. It did nothing else and definitely did not affect the cars fuel consumption.
Electricity consumption
Another internet ad attracting my attention by showing someone spraying WD40 into an electrical powerpoint.
This led to a website that proclaims the plugging a particular device into a PowerPoint would dramatically reduce your electricity bill. Again the device did not do that.
Military grade drone for about $100
This one showed a very professional looking video of a drone supposedly used by the military, that was actually a DGI Drone, that cost over $1,000 that could do all these fantastic things. Those that investigated it, discovered on receiving such a drone that it did not do what was advertised and in some cases did not even fly
If you purchase most things in Australia weather from a store or an Australian web site you are protected by consumer law as adminstrated by the ACCC
However information asymmetry,the fact that sellers have more information than Byers, as in caveat emptor, also applies to consumer law.
Sellers often refer to manufacturers warranties that have various limitations, restrictions and time constraints, when a consumers have problems with what they have purchased. Often these consumers accept what the seller tells them, without noing what legal rights they have.
Is this a scam?
Typically the seller will say the producs warranty period has expired. When the consumer rights does not specify an expiry period.
When I have bought items via the internet from Australian businesses I have been able to , have items repaired, replaced and have received refunds outside of the warranty period, when they were faulty. That is, not fit for purpose.
However in every case I was initially hit with the excuse that the product was outside of warranty. It was only when I referred to my statutory consumer rights, that I got what the legislation allowed.
It would seem that ther is a conserted effort on behalf of sellers to make sure consumers are not aware of ther rights.
Sometimes when you hit a brick wall when you have such an issue with a seller it sometimes helps to say that you will be reporting then to the ACCC.
However the reality is that the ACCC can not force business to comply with consumer legislation. The ACCC can only take court action that, if successful, could result in the seller being fined.
The ACCC has done so in the past against some of Australias largest corporations, only to have some of those same corporations repeat what they did.
So is this a scam?