30/12/2023, 05:08
The decision of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection concerns the competition that Telewizja Polsat organized with Teleaudio Dwa on New Year's Eve 2021 (Photo: Mateusz Grochocki/East News)
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has imposed a fine of almost PLN 10 million on Telewizja Polsat and its related company Teleaudio Dwa for misleading viewers during the 2021 New Year's competition. Polsat says it will appeal the decision of the President of the Competition and Consumer Protection Service.
The decision of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection concerns the competition organized by Polsat and Teleaudio Dwa on New Year's Eve 2021. Viewers who watched the concert on TV on December 31 could participate in the SMS contest “Win 100,000 PLN or a car and additional prizes.”
UOKiK: “Polsat was misleading”
The presenters of the program claim: “You just need to send an SMS word New Year to 7370”, “Today you play on one of these four elegant cars”, “Tonight we call only the winners”. . In addition, the incentive to send an SMS message was created by a beam displayed on the screen during the broadcast of the so-called event.
Also read: Zawadzka, Kolodziejska, Ibis and Zdrojkowski will host Polsat's New Year's concert.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection analyzed the script of the competition, the recording of the New Year's program and the content of SMS messages received by consumers from the organizers. According to the controllers, Telewizja Polsat and Teleaudio Dwa misled consumers about the rules, costs of participating in the competition, its course and possible prizes.
According to the office, contrary to repeated messages, sending a single SMS message for PLN 3.69 did not allow participation in the game for the announced prizes, it was only an application and was activated at the stages planned by the organizer. The next step was to reply to two paid text messages asking for the grand prize and zip code. This made it possible to participate in the game for New Year's prizes and the main prizes, but it was still not guaranteed to win any prize in the competition, which could not be concluded from the broadcast message and the messages sent to the viewers from the organizers.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Service claims that, contrary to the claims of the concert presenters, the audience did not win the promised main prizes on New Year's Eve. They received information about reaching the finals only on January 4. A day later, an SMS arrived with a task requiring another SMS message to be sent.
A fine of almost 10 million PLN
Analyzing the structure of the entire contest, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection found that a viewer who wanted to participate in the final of the game for the main prize had to send four text messages and pay a total of PLN 14.76. for them. According to the office, the information displayed on the screen on New Year's Eve, the assurances of the hosts and the text messages sent by the organizers to the participants were misleading.
For using this unfair practice, the competition organizers were fined almost 10 million PLN by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (Telewizja Polsat – 9.6 million PLN and Teleaudio Dwa – 388,000 PLN). In addition, information about the fine will appear in the form of an audiovisual message on Polsat channels, on the websites of both entrepreneurs, as well as on their social media profiles.
The decision is invalid. – Of course, we will appeal – Polsat Plus Group corporate communications director Tomasz Matwieczyk reports.
Also read: Home Alone averaged 3.35 million viewers on Polsat on Christmas Eve
(KOZ, 30/12/2023)
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