Melbourne Magistrates’ Court has made orders against a dirt bike and power tool retailer and wholesaler.
The orders followed the company breaching an undertaking they gave the Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria after contravening the Australian Consumer Law (Victoria), by supplying banned miniature motorbikes.
In November 2011, Consumer Affairs Victoria staff inspected the Campbellfield business premises of Spot On Cash Pty Ltd, trading as Red Back Tools Import. The inspectors seized 81 miniature motorbikes - known as mini bikes, pocket bikes or monkey bikes - which failed to comply with a permanent ban order.
In October last year the company’s director, Saeed Hosseini, on behalf of the company, gave an undertaking to the Acting Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria to:
- refrain from supplying the banned goods
- pay to publish a public product safety warning and recall notice on its website, at each of the company’s business premises for three months, and in the Herald Sun newspaper
- write to or email all customers to whom the banned goods had been sold, warning of their dangers and offering a refund
- pay refunds to anyone returning the bikes
- implement and maintain a compliance program designed to ensure no further contraventions, and have the program independently audited
- disassemble the banned bikes and hand in the metal frame, brake callipers and cables of each for destruction and disposal, at Mr Hosseini’s expense, by 31 October 2012
- provide specified training to staff.
The company has since failed to adhere to those commitments.
In its ruling on 15 May, the court ordered the company to pay the Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria’s costs of $2092, and to:
- send - at its expense within 21 days - a copy of the court order and the original enforceable undertaking letter to each contactable person who was supplied with the banned miniature motor bikes and has not returned them
- pay for the publication of a product safety warning and recall notice in the Herald Sun newspaper, and
- publish the product safety warning and recall notice on its website home page for 3 months.