Information withheld

When advertising a product the advertiser should always be careful that full and clear details of what is being sold is passed on to consumers. Unfortunately, in Malta this does not always happen and the customer is easily deceived. These are two cases in point:

Whenever you get your monthly bill from Melita Cable to pay for the Onvol service you are told on the back of the bill under Methods of Payment that you can use Maltapost offices for this service. Nowhere does it state that this will cost you an extra €0.47 (Lm0.20). This has been going on for years. Is it not misleading customers when information is withheld? A second case is Maltco Lotteries Ltd. They recently introduced what they call new exceptional winnings on Quaterno stakes.

The advert outlines the fact that winnings have doubled to €50,000, that the only stake possible is now €1 and that each ticket must be played on a separate coupon and not with any other stake.

What Maltco did not tell the public was what they told lotto receivers in a circular on May 15 when they announced changes to Lotto capping linked particularly to this Quaterno game, that if the value of prizes in any particular draw exceeds the sum of €50,000, the amount of prize money shall not exceed such an amount. It also gives an example saying that if in extraordinary circumstances there are two Quaterno winners in the same draw, they will share the amount.

Why was this information not given to the public? Why do the authorities allow such blatant misleading advertising to happen? These are just two cases where customers are being hoodwinked by Big Brother. Should the authorities not take immediate action under the law which exists but is hardly ever applied?