LAW375 Australian Competition And Consumer Law

Question:
Scenario:
Laura lives with her parents, Amy and Michael, and her grandfather, Phoncie, in Newcastle, New South Wales. Amy is a director of a company, Newcastle Building Supplies (NBS), which distributes commercial building materials across Australia. Laura is a student at the University of the West Pacific (UWP) in Brisbane.
NBS recently took delivery of some terracotta roof tiles. Amy placed the order for the tiles with a Sydney-based distributer, ‘Perugia Tile’, after seeing an advertisement in a trade journal which claimed that the tiles were ‘custom-designed, of the finest quality, and curated by octogenarian, artisanal doyens’ working in the ‘backstreets of Sassuolo’. However, after delivery of the tiles, Amy finds that they are of extremely poor grade, they appear to have been produced on an industrial scale, and she has reason to doubt their alleged provenance. Perugia Tile refers Amy to the Italian exporter in order to address her concerns: the exporter tells Amy that the tiles are indeed from Italy, but that claims with respect to ‘Sassuolo doyens’, for example, may have been ‘artistic licence’ on its part.
Michael, meanwhile, wants to take his family on an overseas holiday as soon as Australian border restrictions are lifted. He accesses a popular comparison website, ‘Tripagogo’, which is incorporated in Germany and aggregates hotel prices offered by online travel websites. Tripagogo runs a prolific advertising campaign across many Australian media platforms promising that it offers a price comparison service on which ‘you will find an awesome deal’.
Unknown to its users, Tripagogo’s website search algorithm has been modified so as to include non-price attributes of accommodation offers: thus, Tripagogo may determine the position (or ranking) of accommodation offers in its search results according to the amount paid to Tripagogo by its aggregated online travel websites. Tripagogo also uses ‘strike-through’ prices (eg.: ‘$489 $399’) –– or text in different colours –– to show savings that may be available to customers, but does so by calculating the savings made according to the difference between the price of a standard room and price of a a luxury room at the same hotel.
Separately, Laura has become increasingly disillusioned with the quality of the teaching, and educational and learning resources offered, as part of her enrolment in a degree programme at UWP. Laura thinks back to the print advertisements that enticed her to enrol in the degree at UWP and believes that the suggestions made there, not least in respect of employability prospects and access to lecturers employed in the degree, may be untrue.
Finally, on a weekend evening, while no one else was present at the family home, Phoncie answered a knock on the front door to find a representative from Mr Smith, a local businessman, offering credit under a ‘book-up’ arrangement: under such an agreement, a customer is required to give Mr Smith a debit card linked to a bank account into which they receive Centrelink payments, and to disclose the card’s ‘PIN’. The creditor is then authorised to withdraw funds from the debtor’s account in order to reduce the portion of the loan remaining.
Phoncie emigrated to Australia in the 1950s and is not fluent in English. At his first visit, Mr Smith’s representative agrees to visit Phoncie at a later date so that he can consider the arrangement. After a few further visits, including at least one that is unsolicited, Phoncie agrees to a book-up arrangement with Mr Smith. Phoncie does so as he feels it will be easier to access his money rather than going to a bank, given that his mobility is increasingly limited and he believes that modern cashless payment systems are perplexing, lack transparency, and open to fraudulent activity. Phoncie is unconcerned by the effective interest rate charged under the arrangement, which is, in fact, not made clear to him but is significantly more than commercial lending rates .
Consider the legal issues that arise under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) in respect of the information stated above. Also briefly consider the enforcement and/or remedial provisions under the ACL that may be suitable in respect of the behaviour outlined there.
Then, provide legal advice on those legal issues that arise in respect of the scenarios concerning:
a.) Amy
b.) Michael OR Laura
c.) Phoncie