The Vienna-based Fair Guide, which targets dealers known to stand at leading UK fairs, has once more misled the trade into signing up for unwanted advertising when they thought they were being approached for details to be included in a free listing of the official fair guide to the Antiques for Everyone event at the NEC.
The move has angered Centre Exhibitions, the fair organisers at the NEC, who have no connection with the Fair Guide.
Efforts in the past by the Antiques Trade Gazette to persuade the fair Guide’s owners, Construct Data Verlag GmbH, either to cease their activities or make their forms clearer, have fallen on deaf ears. The British authorities have been powerless to act against them and the Austrian authorities say that the company are breaking no regulations under Viennese law.
However, the OFT has already issued a warning to the trade to beware of companies conducting these sort of marketing campaigns and has advised that anyone receiving unsolicited forms through the post should read the small print very carefully before filling them in and signing them.
NEC angry as misleading fair guide strikes again
JUST as the Office of Fair Trading seemed to be making progress over the misleading marketing tactics of the Barcelona-based European City Guide, another similar operation has struck again.
