01/08/15 Circus Safari in Westgate Shopping City
Ministry of Economy
Directorate for Economic Inspection
Ulica grada Vukovara 78
10000 Zagreb
January 8, 2015
Dear Sir/Madam,
Subject: The reporting of unfair advertisement practice of Circus Safari in Westgate Shopping City and the request for inspection control
On behalf of Animal Friends (Zagreb, Jurisiceva 25), we inform you about the case of
violation of the Consumer Protection Act by Circus Safari and Westgate Shopping City who, for their marketing purposes, mislead people with about the contents offered by Circus Safari via billboards, publications on websites by said shopping mall etc. In its promotional materials, the circus announces wild animals such as the tiger, while the circus in fact includes domestic animals.
In Article 5, paragraph 13 of the Consumer Protection Act (Official Gazette "Narodne novine" 41/14), it is stated that unfair business practice of the trader towards the consumer means every action, omission, behavior or representation, business communication, including advertising and marketing products undertaken by the trader, when directly connected to promotion, sales or delivery of the product to the consumer.
In addition to that, Article 33 of said Act characterizes as misleading a business practice containing inaccurate information, which makes it untrue, or if it is in any other way misleading or likely to mislead the average consumer, which encourages or it is likely to encourage the consumer to make a business decision he/she would otherwise not make.
It is clear from the above that Circus Safari and Westgate Shopping City mislead the potential visitor, who will fairly pay for their ticket for participation in seeing a wild animal show, which here is definitely not the case.
Non-Allowed Advertisement Act (Official Gazette "Narodne novine" 43/09) says that such advertisement is prohibited and mandates withdrawal of the misleading advertisement from the public, as defined by Article 5 stating that properties and results which can be expected from a certain service are, among other things, taken into consideration in the assessment whether an advertisement is legal or not. In this case, the Circus Safari advertisement resulted in misleading the visitors who did not get what they purchased for their money, i.e. what was announced by the promotional materials.
Regarding the fact that Circus Safari and Westgate Shopping city are announcing a new show as soon as January 18, 2015, we demand urgent inspection control, as well as informing us with the results. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Anamarija Helena Milardovic
Animals Friends
