Love Springs, director Phillip Smart fined $555,000 for using toxic water claims to sell filters

Thursday 12th December 2013

Love Springs, a water filter company that took advantage of people's fears about their health to sign up customers door-to-door, was fined $355,000 and its director Phillip Smart was fined $200,000 for breaching the Fair Trading Act.

The fines were imposed by the Auckland District Court after charges were brought by the Commerce Commission.

More than 6,000 water filters were sold during 2009-10 at $1,600 each by sales staff who claimed that local drinking water could cause cancer, birth defects and miscarriages and was dangerous to people's health.

Judge Russell Collins said the approach used scare tactics around the fitness of New Zealand tap water and the marketing claims were utterly false.

"This was nasty and cynical offending which deserved the significant penalties imposed," Commerce Commission head of investigations Ritchie Hutton said in a statement.

Smart had previously been convicted of similar offending in Australia.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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