Archive for category: Lyoness

The Lyoness General T&Cs from the past have been declared null and void by a court ruling, but also the company’s current General T&Cs have been classified as being immoral. Read more

Journalists have treated Lyoness (now “Cashback World”) for a long time as a “pariah” and their latest press release has once again validated this deserved reputation. But have a look for yourself!

Press release from the 31^st of May 2015

The way Lyoness expresses itself in its latest press release is of almost unsurpassable arrogance. Now, Lyoness wants to prove that their actions are legally sound by ignoring the judgement pronounced by an ordinary court. Their renaming as “Cashback World” doesn’t change a thing. The CEO Adolf Weisskopf is aware that some members have been waiting for almost 10 years for the company to function properly, but so far only the managers are making any money from it.

Regardless of any sugarcoating, the fact remains that Lyoness has been convicted as a “snowball system” by a final judgement. In the case of Lyoness, the Austrian legal system has failed completely, it is tempting to speak of “Nigerian conditions” or a “judicial banana republic”.

In this blog entry, I will publish the latest press release by Lyoness, in which Lyoness comments on the verdict by the Austrian Supreme Court dealing with the company’s General Terms and Conditions. I will voice an opposing point of view, uncover any lies within the press release and will explain why many of the statements provided by Lyoness are false (my comments/adjustments are in red).

The verdict, comprising 53 pages, is clear. Lyoness must have been very concerned since the suit in question was filed, as it has far more members who are subject to the old Terms and Conditions than it would like to admit. Tens of thousands of its members have not switched to the new General T&Cs. The present final judgement by the Austrian Supreme Court is in line with a large number of civil judgements and it refers to all members (and not only to entrepreneurs), considering the Supreme Court’s explicit clarification that no distinction is to be made between alleged entrepreneurs and consumers. Lyoness disagrees with this last point!

LYONESS PRESS RELEASE:

LYONESS: THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION (“DECISION ON CLAUSES”) RELATES TO CLAUSES OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS WHICH ARE NO LONGER BEING USED.

Lyoness accepts the verdict from July. The clauses have not been used since 2014. Lyoness will deal directly with any customer claims.

It is disconcerting that they are referring to the “July” verdict. It seems that either they haven’t read the verdict or they don’t have it at hand, as the sentence was pronounced on the 14^th of May 2017.

Graz (OTS) – The Supreme Court’s decision regarding the legitimacy of clauses of Lyoness’ General Terms and Conditions refers to clauses which have not been used since 2014. The Supreme Court is therefore only assessing clauses which are no longer part of the current Terms and Conditions. Moreover, 60 out of the 61 clauses which were at that time subject to complaints made by the Austrian Consumers Information Association (VKI) applied only to entrepreneurs. Due to restructuring measures, since 2014 these entrepreneurs have been part of a separate business segment with its own contractual arrangements. Only one of the clauses which were declared unlawful, referred to members of the purchasing group. That clause has also been invalid since 2014.

It is ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT that other than one exception, all clauses refer only to “entrepreneurs”. This was explicitly stated by the Supreme Court in its verdict.

Obviously, the verdict applies mainly to the customer loyalty program and the purchasing group, because tens of thousands of members are still subject to the old General T&Cs. Lyconet did not even exist back then and even the General T&Cs from 2014 have not been accepted by everyone.

Customer claims will be dealt with directly. (Class) actions are not necessary according to Lyoness, because the company will deal with any customer claims directly as it has done in the past. Lyoness suggests to directly contact kundendienst@xxxxxxx.at for any requests, so that they can help their customers fast and in an unbureaucratic way.

Lyoness is mocking its members by trying to portray lawsuits as being unnecessary, because of Lyoness’ supposed gestures of goodwill. So far, a lawsuit has always been necessary with them and one thing is for sure, the lawyers of Lyoness do not shy away from lying in court. Moreover, even signatures have been faked by Lyoness members (as was proven in a recent case).

The Supreme Court’s verdict does not concern the purchasing group or the customer loyalty program. The cross-sector and cross-border cashback and customer loyalty program is not affected by this verdict. Our approximately 7 million members can therefore continue to benefit from purchasing advantages at around 75,000 partner companies in 47 different countries.

This verdict concerns ALL members!

And what about the vendors? The Supreme Court’s verdict is also interesting from that perspective and should be brought to light and commented on by the media. Especially in the years 2011/12/13 tremendous amounts of money were made at Lyoness by selling their country and business packages. At that time, there were different vendors covering various markets and offering the possibility to pay by cashback card and not only using gift vouchers. In Austria, among those accepting the CBC there were some renowned companies. Those vendors had to pay per CBC transaction 1.5 – 15% (depending on the industry) to Lyoness.

Lyoness is a customer loyalty program and not a pyramid scheme. Already in 2016, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna made it clear that Lyoness is not a pyramid scheme according to § 168a of the Austrian Criminal Code. Consequently, all investigations concerning this matter were stopped.

It is IMPERATIVE to clarify that Lyoness has been found guilty several times of being a snowball system, which is equally illegal. Lyoness IS a snowball system and not only due to their alleged sales and distribution activities.

The court has made a very clear final decision in the case (case file 31 C 651/16z 11) which will surely apply to all damaged parties: They acted as consumers and never stood a chance of obtaining the advantages promised without recruiting new members.

The court’s reasoning shows a comprehensive view of what happened. Several crucial aspects that are mentioned in the reasoning should be shown in context and put together, in order to clarify the nature of the advertised “shopping community” and the “pyramid scheme” or MLM-System behind it.

The highlighted business model, based on down payments on voucher orders and on the necessity to recruit new members as fundament of the pyramid scheme, was defined as unlawful by the court.

Lyoness pretended that the business model “customer card + Cashback” was all about “shopping”. In fact, there was no significant turnover based on Cashback, but only on the vouchers themselves. This is actually a complicated and cumbersome way of payment for consumers, who have to pick it up personally at a Lyoness’ point of sale. It was much easier to “virtually” sell vouchers through the mentioned “down payments” of EUR 2,000 and grant the right to vouchers, summing up to EUR 20,000-100,000 and more, in cases where the paying member covers the difference, makes a purchase or recruits new paying members.

Lyoness took advantage of renown brands for all down payments, as well as for “country and business packages”. The brand’s reputation was used to improve the image and credibility of the system (as for sure no one would’ve trusted or made down payments for “Lyoness vouchers” only). Even today, these brands are perhaps not aware that their brands/vouchers were named and consigned on the “order contracts”. This was also done abroad, where it wasn´t possible to pay with them. We are in the process of informing the concerned distributors that their credibility and image have been illegally misused to generate a larger turnover through down payments. From this perspective, the so called “voucher partners” would be directly linked to the billions in generated Lyoness turnover and the resulting damages.

How do this companies asses the situation, as their vouchers are now part of a pyramid scheme and thousands of consumers have made down payments on them? Will companies such as Otto, McDonalds, OMV, etc. manage to keep out of the legal responsibility of having perhaps significantly contributed to damage members, as thousands of their vouchers were set up to back up down payments?