This year at CHOICE, we're celebrating the upcoming 20th Shonky Awards! That's 20 long years of calling out the worst products and services. During that time, we've handed out over 130 awards to Australia's worst. We've called out huge, systemic issues exacerbated by banks, supermarkets and airlines, but we've also called out ridiculous claims on a smaller scale, from the deadly serious to the utterly hilarious.
Incredibly, some CHOICE staff members who were around for the first Shonky awards back in 2006 still work at CHOICE to this day. Others have been here long enough to have seen a few Shonkys, so we thought it would be a good idea to ask the good folks at CHOICE for their personal favourite Shonky from the past 20 years.
There's some good ones here…
Revitalife agents posed as health officials to gain entry to elderly Australians' homes.
Revitalife (2020)
Andy Kollmorgen – Investigations Editor
One way to measure the impact of a Shonky award is its effect on the recipient.
In the case of Revitalife, our investigation and subsequent Shonky Award led to legal action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and an end to company's objectionable practices. Revitalife agents came across as government health officials to gain entry to the homes of elderly Australians – many of them isolated and vulnerable – in order to sell overpriced adjustable beds with overblown promises of improved sleep and other health benefits.
The financial loss was significant for Revitalife's customers, but the emotional and psychological impact was equally damaging. Not long after the ACCC action, a Revitalife spin-off called Theracare got up to the same underhanded tactics. Our investigation into Theracare eventually shut down that business as well, though we are aware that it has rebranded and appears to be up to its old tricks under a new name.
CHOICE called out CommBank's Dollarmites program in 2018.
Commbank Dollarmites (2018)
Amanda Adams – Senior Consumer Researcher
I really loved that we called out Commonwealth Bank's Dollarmites program.
I have such clear memories of my Dollarmites black wallet with a clear pouch full of 20c pieces, stuffed so full that I thought I was the richest kid in the world! All that promotional gumph clung to me and I stayed a loyal customer.
Then, as a penny-pinching uni student, I looked at my statement and saw I was being charged a monthly account-keeping fee. I wondered, for the first time ever, what I was doing staying with a bank that had no loyalty to me, despite many years' holding an account with them.
With great pleasure, I changed banks – despite their protests that my child signature did not match the adult one! Long may CHOICE hold organisations accountable for pushing strong marketing whitewash over kids who loved collecting 20c pieces.
Power Balance (2010)
Chris Barnes – Senior Project Officer
Ah, the Power Balance, my favourite Shonky from way back in 2010. A magic silicone bracelet with holograms "treated with energy waves to optimise your body's natural energy flow".
They were all the rage for a while, promoted by athletes and spruiked online and everywhere. A marvellous blend of modern science and ancient wisdom!
Except it's a load of hooey, of course. An expensive placebo, as double blind trials in our lab demonstrated. There was no real difference in physical performance when wearing a regular Power Balance band versus one that had the holograms secretly removed. But at least they honoured their money back guarantee.
The company filed for bankruptcy after regulatory actions in Australia and overseas against their very Shonky claims. Yet somehow, the Power Balance brand still exists and the bracelets are still out there, working their only real power – separating naive customers from their money.
Kogan sneakily signed up shoppers to their membership program and slugged them $99.
Kogan First (2023)
Marg Rafferty – Editorial Consultant
Have you ever found yourself signed up to something because you didn't notice a box was ticked on a website when you hastily went ahead with a purchase? Sometimes it just means you've agreed to receive annoying marketing emails, but it might be far more costly than that.
That was the unfortunate and infuriating experience of the people who wrote to us about Kogan First. They accidentally joined the program because they didn't notice the sneakily pre-ticked box when they completed their purchase, and only became aware of the $99 membership fee when they were charged.
This type of manipulative website design is known as a "dark pattern". The same deceptive subscription tactic recently cost Amazon $2.5 billion, when the digital giant settled a lawsuit brought by the US Federal Trade Commission, which alleged the company had "knowingly duped" millions of people.
Since we awarded a Shonky for this behaviour in 2023, it appears Kogan has stopped pre-ticking the Kogan First box at checkout. That's one less dark pattern out there, one more small but useful win for consumers.
Samsung washer dryer combo (2017)
Amanda Audze – Senior Customer Service Officer
The year was 2017 and it was my first real life Shonkys at CHOICE. One of the awards went to a $3000 Samsung washer dryer combo. I remember it so clearly because we flew our laundry expert to the Gold Coast where he dried his laundry on the beach in the sun, had a swim on a giant pink flamingo float and still made it back to Sydney in under 6.5 hours – which was how long it took for a 3.5 kg load of washing to dry in Samsung's machine.
We flew our laundry expert to the Gold Coast where he dried his laundry on the beach, had a swim on a giant pink flamingo float and still made it back to Sydney in under 6.5 hours
CHOICE Senior Customer Service Officer Amanda Audze
Not only that, it also used 149 litres of water to dry the load. How much is 149 litres you ask? It's about 2 to 3 showers depending on how long you need to wake up on a Monday morning, or around 60 days of drinking water for one adult at a normal hydration level.
Some of the other dryers we tested that year managed the job with as little as 16 litres, leaving Samsung's entry high and not so dry.
LG Fridges (2010)
Graham Byrne – WHS and Facilities Manager
The cost of electricity has been a concern for households ever since the first electric light. That's why we have the familiar star ratings on many household products – an initiative that, coincidentally, CHOICE helped to develop.
Back in 2007–2009, LG tried to game the system by programming a special low-energy mode into their fridges that only switched on during testing. The fridge looked impressively efficient in the lab, and therefore on the energy label, but once it was in a real kitchen, that energy saving all but disappeared.
Thanks to expert testing by CHOICE, this shonky trick was exposed – and the product was given the recognition it deserved, for all the wrong reasons.
Following subsequent ACCC action, LG used this experience as a turning point. The company offered compensation to buyers of these fridges and strengthened its trade-practices program, teaming up with consumer organisations like CHOICE around the world to improve their products.
Today, some of their appliances now rank among the best in a number of product categories. Very cool!
The Pain Erazor claimed it could stop pain using "electro-analgesia". It didn't.
Pain Erazor (2017)
Jen Paterson – Head of Content Experience
CHOICE awarded a Shonky to Pain Erazor in 2017. I distinctly remember the sound of Brendan, our Head of Social Media, revving his motorbike in our Shonky video for this product – a nod to the fact that the device came with zero clinical information but, instead, contained a testimonial by a motorcycle stuntman!
Theatrics aside, Pain Erazor is a product that makes pseudo-scientific marketing claims backed up by absolutely no evidence – the kind of dodgy performer you tend to encounter on late-night TV that we love debunking.
While the device purportedly uses "electro-analgesia to stimulate endorphins" to knock out pain, our friends over at Consumer NZ tested it and found it delivered unreliable results, at best.
Doctor Brad McKay summed it up perfectly back in 2017: "Any subjective decrease in pain is more likely to occur from sheer boredom after clicking the device 30 to 40 times, rather than from the device itself." Enough said.
Clean and Clear air in a can (2016)
Melanie Stopic – Verifier
In 2016 I remember thinking there is no way the satire in Spaceballs of President Skroob sniffing air out of a can could be true. Yet, there we were awarding Green and Clean a Shonky for their '100% Pure Australian Air' in a can.
The Australian company had decided that tourists would love to grab a can or two from the airport or tourist hotspots to take back home to remind them of the eucalypt or salt spray scents of their time here. But also that they could export the cans to China, India and Vietnam – countries renowned for their air pollution.
With initial grand plans to bottle air from various places around Australia like the Gold Coast, Yarra Valley, Tasmania and Margaret River – in the end most of their 'air farming' was done in the Blue Mountains.
I remember thinking there is no way the satire in Spaceballs of President Skroob sniffing air out of a can could be true
CHOICE verifier Melanie Stopic
Each aluminium canister came with a plastic face mask. I shudder at the amount of waste, and the carbon footprint of transporting those cans to faraway places.
We determined that an 18-year-old would need to take at least another 440 million breaths in their life and, at 225 breaths per can, would need millions of dollars to constantly provide themselves with fresh air in a can.
By 2019 the company had gone quiet and we've found no evidence that the cans are still being sold or exported.
Marriott timeshare (2018)
Tracy Ellis – Senior Content Editor
We gave Marriott a Shonky for their timeshare scheme in 2018, my first year at CHOICE, after a broader investigation into timeshare schemes found they ranged from "terrible to terrifying".
A 2019 ASIC report subsequently revealed a high level of dissatisfaction with timeshare schemes, and the letters we received from readers concurred.
We heard stories of high-pressure sales tactics at seminars where customers were worn down until they signed, and the financial burden of lifetime contracts that would even be passed on to their adult children – against their will – when their parents died.
Trying to offload, sell or get out of these schemes can be impossible. I needed a holiday (free from fine print) after reading about these complex, expensive timeshare traps.
There is something particularly egregious about ensnaring people with dreams of escape. It would be a miserable feeling to be sitting by a pool somewhere, finally doing the sums in your head and realising you'd been swindled.
Daily Juice Co sold a 'green' juice' with no actual greens.
The Green Juice that wasn't green (2024)
Mark Serrels – Editorial Director
It's probably recency bias but I absolutely loved our Shonky award for Daily Juice Co in 2024.
A "green juice" that technically didn't have any greens in it, it was a great example of a sugary product being marketed as healthy – a common Shonky theme over the years.
When I asked CHOICE legend Marg Rafferty to investigate this product, she went hard. I marvelled at her incredibly detailed spreadsheet featuring every single green juice on sale in Australia and their individual components.
Marg also bought all the ingredients featured in the Daily Juice Co's green juice, then mixed them all together to prove the juice was only green due to added food colouring and without it was a sort of orangey-yellow. Genius!
Thanks in part to this Shonky, Daily Juice Co was removed from shelves in late 2024. Good riddance!
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