{"id":42279,"date":"2023-10-20T15:20:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/drip-pricing-airbnb-and-edreams-accused-of-breaching-consumer-law-by-accc-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:20:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:20:03","slug":"drip-pricing-airbnb-and-edreams-accused-of-breaching-consumer-law-by-accc-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/drip-pricing-airbnb-and-edreams-accused-of-breaching-consumer-law-by-accc-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Drip pricing\u2019: Airbnb and eDreams accused of breaching consumer law by ACCC – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Airbnb is one of two companies to enter enforceable undertakings after the corporate watchdog found the accommodation site may have breached Australian Consumer Law for \u201cdrip pricing\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Drip pricing refers to a practice whereby businesses do not disclose the full price of a product or service initially but instead drip feed the consumer the overall price bit by bit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission began a crackdown on \u201cdrip pricing\u201d last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ACCC said today it has accepted enforceable undertakings from Airbnb Ireland and a competitor, Vacaciones eDreams, for allegedly engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct by failing to disclose mandatory fees prominently on their platforms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The watchdog believes both companies may be in breach of Australian Consumer Law because of the alleged conduct, which took place between November 2012 and November last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The breaches relate to occasions on both websites where service and cleaning fees were not displayed on certain pages of the website where they should have been.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in a statement the issue is a concerning one from both a competition and consumer perspective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDrip feeding consumers with information about charges can cause detriment to competition and result in consumers paying a higher price than the advertised price or spending more than they realise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe law does not prevent traders from charging fees. However, it does require that fees are disclosed clearly to avoid consumers being misled.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both companies have acknowledged the ACCC\u2019s concerns and agreed to enter into consumer law compliance programs as a result of the undertakings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken note of the ACCC\u2019s concerns and we\u2019ll be working to make sure our platform addresses those concerns,\u201d a spokesperson for Airbnb told SmartCompany<\/em> this morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ian Ramsay, professor of commercial law at Melbourne University, told SmartCompany<\/em> enforceable undertakings are a popular method by which the ACCC attempts to improve compliance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cRather than just to punish companies, we see methods to improve compliance to protect consumers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd indeed other regulators use this a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Ramsay says the action will likely come as a surprise to the companies concerned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He says the lesson for other businesses is to check how product pricing is displayed on their websites and to make sure they don\u2019t engage in drip pricing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is because enforcement action from the ACCC comes at a cost to the reputation of the company, even if an enforceable undertaking means there is no fine imposed by the regulator,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt might also mean consumers heading to competitors who haven\u2019t been the subject of enforcement action.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SmartCompany<\/em> was unable to contact Vacaciones eDreams prior to publication.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article was originally published on SmartCompany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airbnb is one of two companies to enter enforceable undertakings after the corporate watchdog found the accommodation site may have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}