Woolworths New Zealand has been advised that the New Zealand Commerce Commission has filed charges against it under the Fair Trading Act in relation to in-store ticketing issues.
The Commission has decided to file criminal proceedings against Woolworths New Zealand Ltd for alleged breaches of section 10 of the Fair Trading Act 1986.
The Commission alleged that, between January 2022 and September 2024, Woolworths New Zealand Ltd breached the Fair Trading Act by misleading consumers about the price they were to pay, or paid, for grocery products.
This occurred mainly in circumstances where:
(1) the advertised prices for grocery products did not match the price charged to consumers at the point-of-sale; and
(2) grocery products were advertised at a special or discounted price which did not offer a genuine ‘special’.
“We know how important it is that all of our tickets are accurate and the prices we advertise are the prices customers are charged at the checkout," said Woolworths New Zealand’s Interim Managing Director, Pieter de Wet.
“We have over 3.5 million transactions in our stores each week, and sometimes errors do occur. When they do, we try to make things right, through our long-standing and market-leading refund policy. Under that policy, if a customer is charged more than the advertised price for a product, they get a full refund and can keep the product.”
Woolworths New Zealand has been cooperating with the NZCC in regard to its investigations into these matters for some time. Woolworths New Zealand will carefully review the charges.
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