30/12/2023, 05:03
Wakacje.pl will appeal the decision of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection and will take further legal steps (screen: Wakacje.pl)
Tomasz Krostny, president of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, imposed a fine of more than PLN 1 million on the Wakacje.pl website, which is owned by the Wirtualna Polska Group. The Competition and Consumer Protection Office has questioned the misleading pricing information. The company's management board does not agree with the arguments made by the president and is appealing the decision of the Competition and Consumer Protection Service.
According to the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the prices of many trips presented on the Wakacje.pl website were outdated or incomplete – a different price was displayed in the search engine, and a different price after expanding the details of the offer. . Often – as stated in the agency – there was no mandatory contribution to the guarantee fund or there were historical prices.
Fine for Wakacje.pl PLN 1.06 million
Monitoring of the Wakacje.pl website by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection during production showed that the problem of price differences affected at least 40 percent. Confirmed offers.
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“An entrepreneur who manages a website that allows finding and sorting offers by price level is responsible for their transparent presentation, therefore, in accordance with the law, he must be sure that the price includes all mandatory taxes and provide information about the cost of the trip at every stage.” – said the President of the Competition and Consumer Protection Office, Tomasz Krostny, in the quoted press release.
Wakacje.pl was fined PLN 1.06 million by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection for using unfair practices. The president of the apparatus ordered the discontinuance of the disputed practice.
The decision of the Competition and Consumer Protection Service will be appealed
In a statement, the management board of Wakacje.pl recalled that the website collects and presents offers from almost 100 travel agencies. “The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection held Wakacje.pl responsible for the price differences in the offers of these agencies, which may occur between the price displayed in the search results and the price visible in the detailed view of the offer. The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection missed the fact that the Wakacje.pl website, as a travel agent, always represents the prices sent to it by travel agencies and does not affect their level at any stage. Travel agencies themselves must, in accordance with current regulations, send current prices to their intermediaries, including Wakacje.pl,” it says.
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“In these processes, we were responsible for something over which we have no control. There is no action that Wakacje.pl could have taken on its own to eliminate these discrepancies,” said Dariusz Gorzny, president of Wakacje.pl.
“Prices presented in reservation systems are constantly changing due to the dynamics of filling seats in hotels and airplanes. Due to the volume of data, the process of updating prices in systems takes some time and is not always done in real time.” noted Janusz Szmygielski, Grecos. Vice President of Holidays.
The decision is invalid. Wakacje.pl has announced that it will appeal it and take further legal steps.
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(KOZ, 30/12/2023)
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