A local company and its director have been fined £3,000 and ordered to pay nearly £1,000 in costs after a misleading advert appeared in a local newspaper.
Mr Tarminda Rai, one of the directors of Rai Fashions Ltd, trading as J-Mart Warehouse, with outlets in Widemarsh Street, Hereford, as well as Leominster and Kington, pleaded guilty to three charges of giving misleading price indications when he appeared at Hereford magistrates court on Friday, July 25.
The company was behind a two-page advert which appeared in October last year, which claimed the 26 fireworks featured in the advert were being sold at half price.
However, magistrates heard that the higher prices had never been charged and that the so-called half prices were merely the normal retail prices other shops in Hereford were selling them at.
Rai was fined £600 and the company was fined £2,400 and ordered to pay £907 costs.
In his defence, Rai told the court he was out of the UK at the time the advert was formulated and they had become confused with their own supplier’s invoice which had given them a 50 per cent discount on the order.
This, they said, had lead to them doing the half price promotion, which was not genuine.
Rai apologised for the incident and promised it would never happen again.
Speaking after the hearing, principal trading standards officer Tim Thorne said: D“It was a blatant, misleading price offence which, under the circumstances, had to be put before the magistrates.
“County shoppers should be aware that many legal sales may not be all they seem.
“The law is that you must charge the higher price for 28 days before starting the sale. If J-Mart had done this it would have been legal,” he explained.
To get round this, many large retailers double the normal selling price of goods for a month and then have a 50% off sale. This is perfectly legal.
“However, it means you are not getting a bargain at all and effectively being induced into paying the normal price for goods you may not otherwise have bought,” warned Tim.
His advice is that consumers should be very careful and shop around for genuine bargains and not fall for “contrived” sales.