THE TIMES & CORPORATESPORT HAVE BEEN PLAYING AN ILLEGAL GAME FOR YEARS

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Andrew Bonamour Times Media's CEO

          You would have thought that a large organisation like the Times Media Group that claims to be a “premier newspaper and magazine publisher with the most recognised brands in South Africa” would know one of the most elementary advertising legal requirements.

          Included in its stable are the Sunday Times and its daily offshoot The Times.

          For years The Times and perhaps other newspapers have been blatantly breaking the law by carrying illegal CorporateSport advertisements for its business breakfasts.

Part of Times Media's pledge

          This firm that is in sports management and marketing claims that these occasions “have become the most established breakfast forums in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban and offer sponsors a cost effective and focused environment through which to impact large captive business audiences and enjoy the effective brand exposure.”

          Various high profile sporting personalities such as rugby coach Brendon Venter; Proteas cricketers Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn and All Blacks Kieran Read and Israel Dagg have been the stars of these events.

          Sponsors of the breakfasts have included firms like Vodacom, Mimecast international cloud based email managers, Landrover, Accenture the business management consultants and McCarthy Toyota. The backers of these get togethers must surely take some of the blame for what has been going on.

          But none of the top business people who have been involved in these breakfasts over the years or anybody at the Times Media Group appear to have noticed that the CorporateSport advertisements were illegal because the prices given excluded VAT.

          The VAT tax came into force in South Africa in 1991 and the South African Revenue Service’s VAT Guide begins its “10 Important Principles” with this: “All prices charged, advertised or quoted by a vendor must include VAT at the applicable rate (presently 14% for standard-rated supplies).”

Another extract from the Times Media pledge

          The earliest CoporateSport advertisement I could find was a 2013 one that gave the prices for individuals and tables of 10 marked (excl.VAT). And the firm has been breaking the law like this since then or even before that aided and abetted by The Times Media Group, which more than perhaps any other type of business should have known better.

          When I pointed this out to Andrew Bonamour the Chief Executive of Times Media in an email he replied promptly saying: “I will look into it. Thanks.”

          Oops almost a month later on 10 April I told him, “You need look no further than one of your own papers, today’s The Times.”

          In one of those quirks of life Wendy Knowler, that ace consumer expert, who writes regularly for The Times, just happened to have a page spread about advertising. In it she told us: “‘The price you see is the price you pay’” was the catchy phrase devised by the Government “many years ago when value-added tax was first introduced.”

          “By law,” she went on, “retailers had to advertise VAT-inclusive prices - and still do. So that was intended to impress on consumers that no retailer could add tax to an advertised price.”

          But undeterred CorporateSport has been doing just that.

          Bonamour passed the problem on to his General Manager Reardon Sanderson who told me he had spoken to Ross Fraser, the head of CorporateSport and “he will amend the adverts going forward. We should not have a repeat of this,” he added.

          Meanwhile my efforts to get comment from Fraser went unanswered. I assume he got my 11 April email because I checked with his PA and she phoned me back to say it had been received.

          He seems to keep out of the limelight as I could find nothing about him on the internet. So perhaps not answering my emails is just part of his hideaway approach to life.  

          In the last one I told him that as his advertisements stating “excl.VAT” were illegal then people who had paid more than the advertised price were all entitled to a refund, going back years, of 14% if that’s what they were charged. And judging by the website pictures showing the crowds of people who attend these CorporateSport gatherings this could mean a great deal of money.

          Evidently as a result of my inquiries an advertisement for the 11 May 2017 breakfast gives two prices for tables of 10 and two for individuals. One is the (excl.VAT) price while the other one is the (incl.VAT) price.

          This prompted me to email Reardon saying: “I suggest this is not right either. If ALL advertised prices have to include VAT then the ones that don’t are surely not legal. And this latest ad suggests you have a choice, to pay the price that includes VAT or the one without it.”

          I questioned why CorporateSport was so obsessed with pointing out the Vat aspect in its ads. “Surely the Vat amount is given on all its receipts and everybody who goes to the kind of event that it organises will know that VAT will be charged,” I argued.

          Reardon has yet to reply to this email.

The Times & Corporatesport finally get it right in the
paper's 21 April edition although the '(incl. VAT)' is
not necessary

          Regards

         Jon, the Spoil Sport; Consumer Watchdog and Poorman’s Press Ombudsman who evidently reads the The Times a lot more thoroughly than they do at Times Media.

    

PATRICIA VAN ROOYEN - CEO IN A MILLION

Dear Consumers,

Patricia van Rooyen

          Have you ever had much joy trying to lodge a complaint directly with a Chief Executive Officer of a large company? Well in my limited experience even if you are able to get their direct email address the chances are they won’t answer you.

          Your inquiry will tumble down the line to some lesser minion.

          That’s exactly what happened when I emailed Maria Ramos (Absa's Star), the CEO of the giant Barclays Africa Group that includes Absa Bank, about a problem I was having getting a refund when my credit card was scammed.

          Perhaps you think I’m being unreasonable but my feeling is that as Maria made her personal email address (maria.ramos@absa.co.za) available to the likes of me she should have answered my emails personally. Either that or she should have ensured that her personal email address was not available to ordinary bank clients like me.

          Patricia van Rooyen on the other hand is a very different, special CEO when it comes to customer service. She heads the M-net pay television’s Sub-Sahara region.

I accept that the M-net is a good bit smaller than the banking empire that Maria heads even if M-net does stretch across Africa, but I don’t think that invalidates my point.

          As an M-net subscriber I have raised several matters with Patricia in the past and she has always replied to my emails almost instantly and my problems have been sorted out quickly.

          So when I saw a disturbing report in The Times by that ace consumer journalist Wendy Knowler I sent this email to Patricia.   

      “I was appalled to read in Wendy Knowler’s column in The Times today that Multichoice (part of M-net) is doing its best to force subscribers to buy new decoders by not repairing or replacing old ones. Talk about an unscrupulous business practice. Loyal subscribers like myself, who have been with Multichoice for something like 20 years could find themselves forced to buy a new decoder by this deplorable business practice. How many people would buy something that might need to be repaired in the future if they were told this might not happen? How long will it be before this make money at all costs firm decides that it’s time to drum up more business by not repairing the decoders that people are being forced to buy now? Just because M-net/Multichoice have got a virtual monopoly it’s no excuse for treating customers like dirt to be milked and then discarded, just to try and make more and more money. It’s customer relations at its worst.”

          This was Patricia’s reply: “Allow me to put some perspective on the matter. All hardware and software technology changes and improves over time. This applies to cellphones, laptops, PCs etc. A decoder is no different. It is very unlikely that if I have a Nokia cellphone that is 10 years old, and I take it in for repairs that anyone will be able to repair it – as the parts will probably not be available. They will tell me to rather buy a new phone; it will be cheaper to buy a new phone anyway. So – in a nutshell – there are simply some very old models of decoders that we can no longer support. They have a lifespan, and at some point they become redundant.

          “When Microsoft tells their customers it is time for an upgrade of software no-one complains. Yet, if you had a PC that was 10 years old you would not be able to upgrade your Microsoft. The software and the hardware must both be upgraded for the software to work. The new decoder software will simply not work on old decoders. We really don’t have any intention of treating our customers badly – on the contrary we want them to have great viewing experience, hence upgrades in both software and hardware are necessary so our viewers can have great features like Box Office, catch up, remote record and, and, and.

          “Maybe our problem is that we don’t explain ourselves well. Maybe we should tell our customers that the life span of a decoder is approximately 6 years and then it will need to be replaced. We make no money on the sale of decoders. In fact we subsidise the price to try and make them more affordable. So every single decoder we sell costs us money.”

          “Not sure if I make sense, but that really is the situation.”

          I replied thanking her for the explanation and getting another of her executives to clarify some other questions I had.

          BUT THE REAL POINT OF THIS POST IS THIS. MY INITIAL EMAIL TO HER WAS SENT ON TUESDAY AUGUST 25 AT 12:14 AM.

          SHE REPLIED AT 10.18 PM ON THE SAME DAY SAYING “SORRY I AM ONLY GETTING BACK TO YOU NOW.”

          YOU KNOW WHERE PATRICIA, WHO IS BASED IN JOHANNESBURG, WAS – IN LAGOS, WEST AFRICA.

          NOW THAT’S SERVICE FOR YOU.

          Regards,

          Jon, the Consumer Watchdog who believes in praising the good as well as taking the bad to task.

P.S. In my final email to her I added: “I am sure this will never be necessary as I will be gone long before you, but if it happens the other way round your efficiency is such that if I sent you an email you would answer it from heaven.”