Website lie costs rug-making pair $1800

Two Auckland rug makers have been fined $1800 after they admitted misleading 11 companies while trying to sell them website addresses and e-mail names.

Neil Jeffery Crozier and Suzie Diana Crowe pleaded guilty to breaching the Fair Trading Act when they appeared in the Auckland District Court yesterday.

A lawyer for the Commerce Commission, Patrick Rainsford, said the couple "conceived a plan to create websites and e-mail addresses" for cleaning companies across Auckland.

After looking through the telephone directory, they paid $999 to register the names of 11 cleaning companies.

They then sent letters to the companies, trying to persuade them to tender for the website names.

One letter told the companies that e-mails from potential clients were being received and then deleted. Up to 72 daily "hits" - visits to the website - were being received.

They said the companies could buy the website for $A5000 and threatened to sell them to rival firms or an Australian group.

When interviewed by the Commerce Commission, the couple admitted that there had, in fact, been no such e-mails.

The Fair Trading Act makes it illegal to "make a false or misleading representation concerning the need for any goods or services."

Crozier, representing himself in court, said the whole business had been put together by himself, with no involvement from Crowe.

"We didn't realise what we did was wrong," he said. "We told them we would demonstrate the value of a website."

He had not set out to try to trick people. Companies such as Telecom were advising businesses that they needed e-mail and websites to survive.

In sentencing the pair, Judge Simon Lockhart, QC, said it was a sophisticated scheme in some ways, but all the companies approached had seen through it and not paid any money.

He accepted the pair did not realise they were committing any offence, but they had been extremely foolish.

Crozier and Crowe were each fined $300 on each of three charges, with $130 costs.

On another charge, relating to most of the companies approached, they each were fined $900 with $130 costs.