Water 'quackery' costs firm

A Hamilton company has been fined $60,000 plus compensation and costs after selling drinking water treatment systems that did nothing at all to the water.

In the Hamilton District Court yesterday, Ecoworld NZ was slapped with the fine for misleading people about the benefits of the units, which contained no mechanism or filter to treat water.

Rather, they contained "living water" in a sealed section, which the vendors claimed came from glacial melts in Austria's Tyrolean Mountains.

Ecoworld sold the Grander Living Water units for between $1500 and $12,000 each.

The court ordered compensation of $68,000 to be paid to consumers who bought the product during the period under investigation (March 2000 to March 2003), and more than $8000 in costs to be paid to the Commerce Commission.

Ecoworld claimed any water brought into contact or proximity with the "living water" would gain special properties, ranging from an improved pH level to becoming hostile to pathogens.

But tests showed there were no measurable differences between water that had passed through the system and untreated water.

Judge Merelina Burnett said that promotional material for the units "contained inconsistencies, quackery and pseudo-science".

On June 1, Ecoworld was found guilty of nine charges of misrepresenting its products and seven alternative charges of misleading consumers, after the commission took it to court for breaching the Fair Trading Act.

Ecoworld directors Ruby and Fred Walker said at the time that the company was appalled at the verdict.

But the commission's director of fair trading, Deborah Battell, said yesterday that the sentence warned companies they could not make false claims about the products they sold. Claims they did make must be supported by credible evidence.

"Some of the claims made about Living Water were so outlandish they should have made people suspicious."

- NZPA