The Authority closed four investigations against Vantage Group s.r.l., Pubblicamente s.r.l., Golden Car s.r.l.s. and Entity Holding Italia s.r.l.s. for unfair commercial practices in the promotion and marketing of car purchase offers “at no cost” (called respectively “My Car No Cost”, “Spot & Go”, “Golden Car” and “AutoNuovaGratis”), imposing fines for a total amount of € 1.6 million euros..

The investigations found that the four operators engaged in unfair commercial practices in breach of articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Consumer Code, by publishing misleading information on their respective websites to promote commercial offers which, following the suggestive promise of buying a car “at no cost” or in any case at a much lower price, required customers to pay large sum upfront (several thousands of Euros) to subscribe the offer; such large sums would have been repaid by instalments (of about € 300-400 per month )to the subscribers , as fee for the advertising activities carried out using the vehicle purchased (so-called carvertising). Thus, consumers were misled to believe that the alleged monthly repayment was provided in consideration of an actual economic activity with the car – that would allow them to recover the amount paid upfront to purchase the car.

The evidence however showed that the commercial offers were deceptive and untrue as the offers hid from the consumers how the system actually worked. In particular, the system was not supported by the actual profitability of the advertising activities, but it was based almost exclusively on obtaining the entry fees paid by the subscribers; thus it was impossible for the system  to honour, other than for a limited period of time, the promise made to subscribers of the alleged instalment repayments. 

As regards Vantage Group, the first operator to develop this type of scheme, the Authority also found that it had carried out aggressive commercial practices in breach of articles 24 and 25 of the Consumer Code, as it failed to respect the reimbursement commitments with consumers who had subscribed to the commercial offer My Car No Cost also making it difficult for them to exercise their contractual rights during contractual relationship.

Considering the seriousness and the length of the said violations of the Consumer Code and taking into account the number of consumers who subscribed to each scheme, the Authority imposed administrative fines for € 1,200,000 against Vantage Group s.r.l., € 200,000 against Pubblicamente s.r.l., € 100,000 against Golden Car s.r.l.s. and €100,000 against Entity Holding Italia s.r.l.s.

Rome, 20 November 2019