A Melbourne office supplies company is in deep shit after a tribunal found its salespeople acted illegally when it bullied a farming couple who owned a single printer into buying literally 2,000 cartridges of ink.
artist’s impression of the salespeople
Salespeople from Corporate Office Supplies began cold-calling Rod and Charmaine Sharp back in 2015. Mrs Sharp told the tribunal that she was harassed and bullied by these salespeople, who wouldn’t take no for an answer and continually pressured her to buy more and more ink.
For the record, the couple owned one printer and said they went through one cartridge every 10 months. A quick bit of mental math indicates that these cartridges would therefore last… oh about 1,700 years or so. Not the best investment.
Mrs Sharp told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that she initially bought 56 cartridges from the company – already far, far too many cartridges – but was then pressured into buying another 1,984 cartridges. She did not tell her husband about this.
The costs totalled nearly $80,000. Afterwards, the couple says the company began pursuing them aggressively for the debt, with some of the calls being taken by their young son.
VCAT deputy president Ian Lulham said it was pretty ridiculous and almost certainly illegal, and called for Corporate Office Supplies to be investigated by Consumer Affairs Victoria.
“It is not overstating the position to say that any business which sold over 2000 cartridges to a business that owned one printer acted unlawfully,” he said.
“[They] may as well assert that Mrs Sharp agreed to buy the Sydney Harbour Bridge.”
That, to me, is a lot of printer ink cartridges. Just my take.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Photo: Office Space.
