First published in Bay of Plenty Business News May 2025 edition
The phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ originates from the end of the last stanza in Thomas Gray’s poem ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’. Written in 1742 but not published until 1747, the poem is about the return of a disillusioned adult to the site of his schoolboy years.
The last stanza of the poem, in full, is:
To each his suff’rings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
Unlike in Thomas Gray’s poem, the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ is today often used in the absolute, i.e. ignorance is bliss. Period. Unfortunately, however, ignorance is not always bliss and it is certainly not a defence to many legal claims, including claims for misleading or deceiving consumers as to their rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA).1
Many readers of this article will know of the CGA and may, at some time, have personally exercised their rights under the CGA against a manufacturer or retailer. Many readers, too, will know that the CGA is a truly powerful piece of legislation – as Woland Limited, which trades under the Look Sharp brand, found out in February this year when it was fined $292,500 in Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to making misleading representations about product prices and consumers’ rights under the CGA, in breach of the Fair Trading Act.2
In relation to consumers’ rights, Woland reportedly2 made a number of representations between January 2021 and August 2023 about customers’ right to refunds and exchanges for faulty products. These representations, made via receipts, signs inside stores and the Look Sharp website, restricted the timeframe for returns on faulty products to seven days and prohibited refunds and exchanges for specific product categories2 – all in direct contradiction of the rights set out in the CGA. As liability under the Fair Trading Act is ‘strict’, it mattered not if Woland was ignorant of consumers’ rights under the CGA or if it had no intention to mislead or deceive consumers.
Despite the attention the Look Sharp story received in the media,3 consumers continue to be misled or deceived as to their rights under the CGA, as I, personally, can attest to.
In February 2024, I purchased an electrical product of reasonable value from a local retailer, which I shall call Retailer X. A few weeks ago, the product developed a fault so I took it back to Retailer X to get either a refund or replacement. I was told, in summary, that because the retailer only offers a 12 month warranty on electrical goods, and my purchase was 14 months ago, the retailer could and would do nothing for me as a matter of policy. Somewhat taken aback by this reply, I informed Retailer X that it didn’t matter what its policy was; I had rights under the CGA and the CGA trumped Retailer X’s policy because Retailer X cannot contract out of the CGA. Retailer X refused to budge and said I should just throw my electrical product away. I left the store not exactly a happy camper. I subsequently called another store in the Retailer X chain and Retailer X’s customer care line, both of which re-confirmed Retailer X’s apparent policy and said there was nothing they could do.
I am pleased to advise that following further correspondence with Retailer X, during which I advised I would be filing a complaint with the Disputes Tribunal, Retailer X changed its position and decided to refund me the cost of my purchase.
Despite this outcome, I am left wondering and troubled as to how many consumers, ignorant (not blissfully) of their rights under the CGA, have been misled or deceived by Retailer X’s policy; a policy, I would hope, pursued out of ignorance and not intent to deprive consumers of their rights.
You might be wondering how consumer rights are relevant to the subject of intellectual property. This is how. Many businesses rely on ‘reputation’ or ‘goodwill’, a concept particularly associated with unregistered trading names, rather than registered rights to underpin the overall dollar value of their businesses. The value of a business’s reputation or goodwill will usually go up over time, but it can also go down. A key influencing factor in the value going down can be negative consumer experience.
If a business, like Woland and Retailer X, misleads or deceives consumers as to their rights under the CGA, therefore, then the value of that business’s reputation or goodwill will take a hit. That hit might be minor and temporary, but it also might be significant and permanent. As I quoted in my BOPBN column in September 2024, “People no longer head to the shops simply to purchase products. They go for the experience – and that explains why 61% of customers will switch to a competitor after just one bad experience.”4
My advice, then, to all consumer-facing businesses is to make sure you and your staff know your obligations under the CGA. In an age when ‘reputation’ and ‘goodwill’ can be so easily and quickly impacted by social media especially, it pays to do so.
- https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0091/latest/dlm311053.html
- https://comcom.govt.nz/news-and-media/media-releases/2025/sharp-fine-on-the-way-for-look-sharp-after-comcom-investigation
- For example, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/retail/look-sharp-fined-almost-300k-for-misleading-pricing-ignoring-complaints/5BNQSBQPEFC6FB4OKJ33G5NONY/
- https://bopbusinessnews.co.nz/intellectual-property-issues/sorry-for-the-inconvenience-are-you-really/
