Laura Moore, managing director of Jewellery Industry Network (JIN) has distributed a statement correcting misleading claims and information about an upcoming trade show.
According to Moore’s email, a promotional brochure was produced by JIN in May 2022 promoting the Jewellery Industry Fair (JIF) scheduled for August 2023.
The brochure contained numerous claims about the event that appeared to be either misleading or deceptive – which JIN has now corrected.
According to the JIN website, Moore is the managing director of the company – the organiser of JIF – along with directors Andy Phanthapangna, Brett Lowe, and Ewen Ryley. Lowe and Ryley own Jewellers Co., a Facebook page formerly known as Young Jewellers Group.
Moore’s email attempts to clarify statements made in the May promotional brochure and ‘track record’.
The email reads as an acknowledgement that the brochure incorrectly gave the impression that Moore/JIN had previously organised a jewellery fair in Sydney.
The email reads: “JIN would like to clarify the following in connection with the brochure.”
“JIN has never conducted a jewellery trade show or fair in Sydney. The Sydney Fair will be JIN’s first jewellery trade show or fair to be held in Sydney. The track record referred to in the brochure was a reference to the Melbourne Fair record.”
Testimonials and buying groups
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False or misleading claims and misleading impressions • A business must be able to prove any claim they advertise. • Claims should be true, accurate and based on reasonable grounds. • Businesses mustn’t mislead consumers. • Businesses should be honest in their dealings. • Businesses shouldn’t try to gain an unfair advantage by making misleading claims about their products or services. • It makes no difference whether a business intends to mislead or not. Source: ACCC |
The brochure also suggested that the event had the support of three buying groups: Nationwide Jewellers, Independent Jewellers Collective, and Leading Edge.
On that point, Moore has now issued corrections.
“Page five of the brochure referred to buying groups including those known as ‘Leading Edge’, ‘Nationwide Jewellers’ and ‘Independent Jeweller’s Collective’,” the email reads.
“People who identified themselves as members of those buying groups during the registration process for the Melbourne Fair attended that event.
“As far as JIN was subsequently made aware, those people did not officially represent the respective buying groups at the Melbourne Fair.”
Anonymous ‘testimonials’ were also included in the 2022 document, detailing the success of a previous event.
However, the way in which these testimonials were presented gave the appearance that they were endorsements of the 2023 jewellery fair; an event that has never previously taken place.
“The statements in the form of testimonials from guests or visitors of a prior jewellery industry fair event appeared on pages three and five of the brochure were supplied by people who attended the Melbourne Fair,” the email now clarifies.
Are you listening?
One of the most intriguing claims made in the brochure revolved around a business called The Jewellers Podcast which appears to have started in 2017.
JIN promotes itself as ‘Australia’s largest network of Jewellers’; however, this claim is not substantiated.
While the About Us section of The Jewellers Podcast Facebook page provides no details about the business, a third-party link to a Spotify page states: “The Jewellers Podcast is part of the Jewellery Industry Network.”
The Jewellers Podcast is hosted by Moore and fellow JIN director Brett Lowe. The Facebook page was created in July 2017.
This is important because Moore’s email reads: “Page three of the brochure referred to 60,000 podcast listeners. The podcast referred to was The Jewellers Podcast.
“At the time you received the brochure, The Jewellers Podcast had been accessed/listened to approximately 60,000 times since 2017.”
This somewhat circular explanation is an attempt to correct Moore’s claim that 60,000 people listen to The Jewellers Podcast when, in fact, the podcast had merely been accessed 60,000 times.
Among other issues, the initial claim failed to consider one person accessing the same audio file multiple times. That is, ‘listeners’ (people) and ‘access’ (listens) are entirely different measures.
Furthermore, the misleading phrasing is made worse by the fact that the statistics quoted relate to a five-year period, with more than half of the time being when JIN did not exist.
JIN was launched in 2020 and the claims made in the promotional brochure relating to ‘listeners’ of The Jewellers Podcast go as far back as July 2017, three years before JIN began.
While the JIN brochure had misleadingly claimed 60,000 listeners, at the time of publication The Jewellers Podcast Facebook page had 884 ‘followers’ and one review. That review has since been removed.
Settlement
Jeweller has contacted Moore multiple times to confirm whether or not her email was in response to a legal dispute and/or legal proceedings.
When contacted on 7 August, Moore indicated that she would provide background information to her industry email; however, she has since declined multiple invitations to offer comment.
It appears that Moore’s email clarifying misleading statements was in response to legal action by Expertise Events.
When contacted about the matter, a legal spokesperson for Expertise Events said, “Our client was the applicant in proceedings which were set down for hearing on 19 July 2023.
“Federal Court proceedings are a matter of public record [and which] on that date the court made orders dismissing the proceedings by consent.”
When proceedings are dismissed by consent it generally means it was ‘settled out-of-court’. It involves a legally binding agreement between parties involved in a legal dispute and is approved by the court.
The spokesperson added, “Our client makes no comment in relation to your statement that you have been supplied with an email distributed by Laura Moore.”
The Federal Court of Australia records a case number (NSD840/2022) listed in September 2022 showing the Jewellery Industry Network as a respondent in a ‘misleading or deceptive conduct’ proceedings.
The Commonwealth Courts Portal records the Federal Court hearing as “Finalised – Dismissed By Consent” on 19 July. Moore’s industry email is dated 7 days later – 26 July.
As mentioned, Jeweller attempted to clarify whether this email was related to that court case; however, Moore was not forthcoming with this information.
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