CHOICE hands Shonky Awards to Meta for taking ‘inadequate action’ on scams and NIB’s premiums for single parents

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The consumer advocacy group, CHOICE, has criticised Meta for failing to protect its customers from scams, at the annual Shonky awards.

Transcript

00:00I'm here at the headquarters of Consumer Group Choice, who has now announced this year's

00:06winners of the annual Shonky Awards, which names and shames the worst products or services

00:12for consumers. I'm here with the CEO, Ashley De Silva. Ashley, what's taking out the top

00:18spot on this year's list?

00:19Look, for the top spot, we'd have to go with Meta this year, and that's really for not

00:23doing enough to protect Aussies from scams that are starting off in their platforms.

00:29So Meta would say that they're doing more to try and push back on these kind of scams

00:33on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. What would you say to that?

00:37Yeah, we do hear from them saying that they also want their platforms to be free of scams,

00:42but there is such a huge gap between that ambition and the reality. So, you know, there's

00:46data from 2023, which showed that 76% of scams that start on social media platforms are starting

00:53on Meta's products. So there's really a bit of a question there around, are they doing

00:58enough and is what they're doing really working?

01:00Okay, next on the list.

01:02This is for NIB. And the reason we're giving NIB a shonky this year is because they're

01:07charging more for single parents than they do for couples. So there's examples in their

01:12insurance products where it costs a couple 4% more to add a child to their policy, but

01:18it's double the premium price for single parents.

01:21Okay. If we head down here, we've got this pair of socks. Can you tell me more about

01:26them?

01:27So this is a pair of socks from a company called Grounding Well, and they claim to have

01:30a range of health benefits from the practice known as grounding. We didn't see any of those

01:36in the time that we trialled it. But I think the other reason we're giving this a shonky

01:39is we really didn't get to trial it for very long because the product's so poorly made,

01:44it broke within two uses. You kind of need to charge these up and it's such a flimsy

01:48connection that it broke very, very easily.

01:50And how does it actually work? Does it plug into the wall? Is that correct?

01:53That's right. So you plug this into the wall and that's meant to be a key part of helping

01:56produce the health benefits of grounding.

01:58Okay. This next item is of particular interest for me because I have a Labrador that sheds

02:03a lot. What is it?

02:05Well, it's a stick vacuum from Asapure and I wouldn't recommend it for your lab at

02:12home. Our team who do all of our vacuum testings, they've tested so many different types of

02:17vacuums over the years, have called this the worst they've ever tested. And we do a performance

02:23test for each of these. And you know, one of those things is to look at how well they

02:27deal with something like cornflakes and we could only give it 10%.

02:3110% that seems very low.

02:32Very low.

02:33Okay. Next up, tell me about this juice.

02:35So this is a green juice by the Daily Juice Company. So it looks pretty enticing, but

02:41the big part that's missing from this is anything green at all. So, you know, products like

02:46these would be expected to have at least some green vegetable in them. But in this case,

02:51the only thing that's green in this product is food colouring.

02:54Okay. And you tested this in the lab with the ingredients that are listed on the back.

02:59What colour did it come back?

03:00It comes back looking much more like orange juice. There is not a scare of green until

03:04you add the food colouring.

03:05Okay. So they're the winners of the Shonkies. What's your advice to consumers if they've

03:09seen any of these products or are looking for more information?

03:13Look, these are really the worst of the worst from this year. And so I think if you can

03:18avoid buying any of these products, then you absolutely should. And if you're engaging

03:22on platforms like Metta, then you should be aware that they're a company that could be

03:27doing a lot more than they are to keep you safe on those platforms.

03:31So there you go. The items, the products, services that have won this year's Shonky

03:37Awards. Naming and shaming the worst products or services on the market right now. It's

03:43definitely not something you want to win.

03:48Shonkies.co.uk

Category

Transcript

Recommended