This thread is for disclosing take-down requests from merchants and related discussions. We at OzBargain often receive requests from merchants to remove pages and deals on this website. Sometimes the requests can be reasonable but sometimes not. The moderators will use this thread to post requests from merchants + our actions.
For merchants / store representatives:
[NSW] Free Pizza @ Made In Italy (Five Dock Only)
Email from Made In Italy:
Due to COVID restrictions and to keep the community safe we have to stop promoting this offer to the general public. Please remove the post ASAP
When inquiring whether the free pizza offer is no longer available or just available to selected individuals, we are getting reply stating that it is "no longer available" — assuming Made In Italy Five Dock has pulled the offer.
Deal moved to forum as Unobtainable.
[SA] Fringe Membership $0 (Was $25), Fringe Fanatic Membership $15 (Was $40) @ Adelaide Fringe
We have received multiple reports, TWAM, and emails since yesterday from Adelaide Fringe to ask this to be taken down. Here's an example email:
I work for Adelaide Fringe and someone has posted a promo code on your site that is in direct violation of our Terms and Conditions.
This promo code can only be redeemed by those who meet the eligibile criteria (by shopping in-store & spending buying specially marked packs).
We are requesting that you please remove this from your website.
When asking them to disable that coupon code, we have received a reply:
If you are refusing to have the content taken down we will need escalate the matter.
I am hoping you will be able to see the issue and damage this is causing and assist us.
Initially we have argued that it's a generic coupon code obtained legally through Drake. However, as the distribution of the coupon code is against the terms and conditions of the promotion, despite it being generic, after much discussions amongst the moderators, we decided to remove the code, and change it to be a promotion from Drake.
20% off Sustainable Beach Towels (Made from 85% Repurposed Plastic) @ Cloey Swim Club
The deal was poorly received and the OP was unhappy with feedback received.
Given the deal was poorly received and neither the community nor the business is benefitting from the deal, we've granted removal. We've also permanently banned the store.
Received an email from Kukki Kids that they do not wish to have their past deals on OzBargain to show up on Google search result. As search engine result is not a valid reason for merchants to request a deal take down, we asked whether Kukki Kids do not wish to have presence on OzBargain. Kukki Kids have confirmed that.
As Kukki Kids do not wish to participate on OzBargain anymore, we have
How long before they would drop of Google search result for the brand name? Currently twice on first page. Had a look at their prior posts via Google Cache, I can see why they don't want them up, not kind comments, nor decent voting results.
Popular deals with 1 pos vote lol. Seems to have made the rep particularly salty
Received multiple TWAM, emails and "Letter of Demand" to have their post taken down, as OP no longer wants to have anything to do with OzBargain.
Aww but it was only the 4th hit on Google when you search the company lol
Second Google result is now Catch.com.au ha ha, hope they're enjoying that affiliation
A code for the above offer has been shared on your site and seems now shared to your socials. As this was to a specific database of our loyalty members, we would greatly appreciate if you could remove the offer from socials and your site as the data is now being affected and skewing our reporting.
and
We’d prefer these kinds of offers to be for our loyalty members.
We gave the merchant the option of giving us a custom/different code for OzBargain, to replace the code on our website. They declined this offer and asked it to be removed anyway. This request was ignored.
the data is now being affected and skewing our reporting.
lolwat?
lolwat?
I'm guessing they ran a promo targetting specific members in their database to test a marketing strategy or something. But when the code gets shared and used by other people, all that goes out the window.
oh okay then. sounded a bit precious the way they worded it. "them professionals are ruining our datas!"
I am requesting that the posts from GoodlifeHC need to be removed as they have not been approved from Goodlife Head Office and are in breach of their marketing strategy.
The person who has posted does not have the authority to post these adverts
We informed the user that it is up to their company to communicate internal marketing guidelines with the rest of the network/branches and to ensure compliance and that Goodlife reps have been posting on OzBargain since 2017.
Free Ring Sizer @ Brilliant Earth
Support email from Brilliant Earth:
We noticed your site published a ring sizer post driving a significant amount of traffic to our site following the post about a free ring sizer which is not a valid offer currently. Could your team please remove and expire this offer post/thread?
Post marked as expired.
Email from Woolworths
After email discussions with Woolworths, we have
NABTrade $1,000 Free Brokerage for 90 Days
Email from NAB:
It's a targeted marketing offer although the offer itself is not targeted. We have kept the post published, flagged as Targeted, added an update to the description, remove promo code & change the landing page link to nabtrade's home page.
$30 off When You Spend Minimum $90 on Full Priced Items @ The Iconic
Email from THE ICONIC:
Again a targeted marketing offer but not targeting has been implemented in coupon code itself. Deal marked as Targeted & Mod notes added.
20% off Shotspresso Energy Coffee Shots + Free Shipping > $40 Spend @ Shotspresso
TWAM from Shotspresso (summarised for clarity / privacy):
They do not want their product listed for sale online in the long term, they are only doing 20% off during lockdown. When searching their brand the OzBargain deal is listed in the top 5. They will remove the 20% off from the site too 'after the listing' as they don't want their product to be associated with a sale.
The marketing intern posted the 20% off deal without reading OzBargain's terms and didn't have authorisation to post it on OzBargain. It is causing the owner of the company a lot of distress.
We indicated that the posts themselves and who uses their account, is their responsibility. We also stated that we aren't responsible for search ranking. Despite this the rep insisted on removal, as this was a single post and and had few votes/comments, we agreed to remove it on the basis the store would be permanently banned from OzBargain.
Deal unpublished and store banned.
Looks like they are just trying to keep the turnover down to ensure some sort of Covid grant! Strange instead of thanking, the extra sale (albeit at 20% off) is causing the owner distress!
and it's always the "intern's" fault…
They also still have the sale up. Probably waiting for the intern to take it down.
Received an email from IP Arrow last Friday, stating that
We replied explaining that OzBargain is a community website and the post was posted by member to discuss bypassing geo-pricing. However today we have received a DMCA copyright infringement from "MX INTERNATIONAL INC" claiming we are linking to the copyrighted material.
As the deal page has only linked to the Crunchyroll plan page, their claim is false. We are putting up a disclaimer at the top of the post, removing the thumbnail image, but the post will stay published.
Gotta love dmca abuse. When all else fails.
According to email from IP Arrow this morning that they have proceeded to legal action. We'll see what turns up.
At what point does the post get removed? I know technically you are not doing anything wrong, it's more of an FYI "you can use a VPN", but when do you back down?
Any update?
No update… which is good news.
just seems to me they'd save themselves the hassle and legal fees by not engaging in this regional pricing bs, then trying to enforce it with legal threats..?
It makes sense though
In Aus, $10 a month is reasonable for a service, and when you convert that to Argentina, India and other such countries - $10 a month is a significantly larger chunk of their monthly income. As such, they'd lose out on that market completely.
Reducing Aus prices to Arg/Indian prices will not substantially increase the customer base in Aus, but will cost them more overall in reduced revenue.
It sucks, but it makes complete sense why they have regional pricing.
nabtrade $1,000 Free Brokerage for 90 Days (New Users Only)
Email from NAB:
HI, can you please remove the nabtrade offer …
This offer is exclusive to NAB shareholders and is not for the general public.
Same as last time, we
[ACT] KIVIK Corner Sofa Set - Two Chaises $998 (Was $2600) @ IKEA Canberra
The deal poster has requested for removal of their deal post
we aren’t allowed to represent IKEA in anyway online which I’ve done
Request for deal removal was granted as it concerns the employee's job security. Deal unpublished and associated deal posts have been blocked.
Starting from today, 14th March 2022, 6:22:44 pm, IKEA associates (employees) can no longer submit deal posts for the store as it is a breach of their internal social media policy
Email from Services Australia (Australian government)
While we appreciate the intent behind this post, we are concerned about information included becoming out of date as well as potential confusion between the supported being provided by different government bodies.
In your Deal Posting Guidelines, under Government Programs, you state:
Government programs that are cost saving measures (e.g. free public transport) are permissible to be posted as deals. However income producing programs or social services (e.g. increase to Centrelink payments) should not be posted.Therefore, we request you remove this page (and associated comments) from your website based on this content being a breach of the guidelines.
Deal post was moved to the forums.
Wow, a takedown requester who actually read the deal posting guidelines.
Yeah, makes you wonder why it wasn't removed by the mods in the first place
the poster is now a wheelchair user
services aus employees have a lot of free time
Free Ice Cream Spade Delivered @ Bulla
Email from voodu:
hello
URGENT!!
I am contacting you n behalf of Bulla Dairy the promoter of this competition https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/701065
can you urgently remove this advertisement from your page. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/701065
Bulla Dairy did not give authorization to post this.
OR can you tell me what department of your company can assist us?
Thanks
No action taken.
There was no valid/reasonable reason given for removal. The request was therefore ignored.
When did they contact you about this?
I received my spoon last week!
Request (20/5/22)
We generally won't post requests here straight away unless they are resolved and there is no chance for follow up. We also sometimes forget.
Lol that's a big oops that they didn't ask for proof of purchase
Seems like typical marketing department foresight.
I bet they never wanted to give away all 70,000 of them!
They outsourced their marketing to Voodu. There was certainly a lot of panicking in that office ;)
Email from CHANEL IP Department in UK, claiming the above page violating their copyright stated in their T&C.
As CHANEL has not consented to use of the content/materials from the CHANEL website on the OzBargain website, OzBargain is infringing CHANEL’s copyright.
We therefore look forward to receiving notification that the infringing content has been removed immediately, within the next 48 hours.
As text and images from the website are considered copyrighted material and we cannot reproduce them, quotes from the website and the screenshot have been removed from the post, and a mod note has been added.
Free Mobile VR Headset for Doing Online 30 Minute University Research Study @ Sydney University
Email from someone from University of Sydney
Removal of a Post - 713569 (Lack of ethical approval)
Hi,
I'm a researcher from the University of Sydney and I was hoping to have a post that pertains to one of our research studies removed — see https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/713569.
I understand that OzBargain posts that are highly popular are less likely to be removed but unfortunately we do not have the appropriate ethical approval to have this study advertised on OzBargain. I have been in contact with the poster who has since requested to have it removed but we were hoping to have it removed ASAP.
Please let me know if you need any other information.
No action taken,
We informed the user that we cannot unpublish the deal. A 'lack of ethical approval' on their end does not prevent a user from sharing what they have discovered online, either on Ozbargain or other social media channels.
Furthermore the survey had already been closed off and the deal was already expired.
Everyone waiting patiently for a certain Forum post to be listed in here…
The request was already there less than an hour after that forum post was posted. OzBargain itself might be sued so we'll wait for more development before putting the report here.
I’m not a lawyer but sure the recent High Court ruling cover OzBargain ?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-17/high-court-decision-g…
It's still up to the court to decide if they do decide to take up law suit against OzBargain. It's just me who don't want to disclose all the take down requests until the issues are more finalized.
@scotty: We understand scotty!
How's the stress levels over something like that one though? I can imagine they're attacking a lil harder than most of these would
@spackbace: I have contacted a legal counsel but he would only work once we have received a notice from other lawyers. Stress — yes a bit. Unnecessary annoyance.
I'm surprised they didn't offer you a $5k bounty 🤣🤣
I feel like I've missed out on something really important 😂
same. i don't visit the forums much
A user made a post that a law firm threatened to sue him for defamation. It got updated with spicy developments
Check their reviews now - a lot of 5* reviews from accounts with only one review.
They are making sure if you sort by "newest" you only see positive reviews.
yeah, now they are not complaining - all seem to be fake given they were all left in a very short span of time.
Two posts from the same user:
A. Defamation Threat for Leaving Negative Reviews on Google (posted on 18 Aug at 2:57PM)
B. Google Review Update (posted on 28 Aug at 4:20PM)
RHC Solicitors sent in an email less than an hour after post A got posted:
We (OzBargain) did not see the original post as violating OzBargain's rules, hence the request was declined. We did unpublish certain comments, and have requested RHC for specific comments that are defamatory so we can unpublish those instead of the entire post.
As more emails coming from RHC Solicitors, we have decided to (1) remove the post A from front page highlight, and (2) subsequently lock the post from commenting.
There were email exchanges between our legal counsel and their lawyers between 25 Aug and 2 Sept, basically disputing the comments they have problems with.
Meanwhile, OP requested post A to be unpublished (and granted). 20 minutes later post B went live, got around 50 comments and 3 hours later OP requested it to be unpublished as well (and granted).
This comment is updated on 16 Sept as there has no further communication between OzBargain & RHC Solicitors for 2 weeks.
BTW the comments link in the previous comment still works for me, but doesn't work in incognito.
That should be fixed.
Pretty sad that they just threaten to clear out seemingly genuine bad reviews
I think the bikies ozbargain meme needs to become rhc (and by just stating those 3 letters, not the 2nd word, it could be seen as referencing multiple things…)
Who you gonna call to sort your neighbour issue? Rhc
Who you gonna call to sort your car accident issue? Rhc
Got problems with a store warranty? Rhc
Hmm ok just read the follow-up post (thanks Google cache…), interesting
i wouldnt give "rhc" such notoriety or rent space
If anyone's still curious (this info was shared by RHC)
They suspect the mass influx of positive reviews have been purchased by someone else to harm their business, and assert that they have nothing to do with these 'fake' positive reviews. Also say that negative reviews were removed along with some 'fake' positive reviews.
[Student Beans] $20 off $80+ Spend on Eligible Items @ eBay
10/11/22 14:13 EST eBay sent a ticket (copied verbatim)
"Could you please have your team take this down: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/723734
This is an exclusive code for Students and should be leaking."
None taken. We replied stating that the deal post doesn't display any codes, and all the single-use discount codes that are generated by StudentBean users are posted in the comments section of the deal.
We do not have the ability to stop users from sharing their unused vouchers online. The deal will remain published.
25% off Any Item in-Store (Excludes Custom Cakes) @ The Cheesecake Shop
From email (27/2/23):
No action taken and the request was ignored.
Upon investigation we found that the OzBargain post in fact contained every term and condition from the Facebook ad, apart from the local store condition, which in fact was not the case. Changing the post as requested, would therefore make the OzBargain post, inaccurate.
So businesses prefer spending on Facebook (assuming paid ad/sponsorship) for advertising instead of getting free publicity on OzB!
It definitely skewed their data as to whether people bought because of facebook or ozbargain ahaha
Easy fix for that 😂
The Cheesecake Shop Marketing Team
Can't be doing that good of a job if they don't see that a free post on here drives traffic to them ;)
Wouldn't be too hard to start a promo of 'enter this competition, receive a discount code for your local store', whereby the competition asks for your suburb…
yeah they sound like a bunch of overpaid minimalists who likely only got their job because a mate recommended them.
Requested to remove 'our website section'. Request denied.
Then:
Requested to remove this deal. Request denied.
Then:
We do not permit Ozbargain to reproduce our copyrighted imagery for use on your website. (1)
We request OzBargain remove all references to “No Pong” from your site as soon as possible. (2)
(1) Removed No Pong logo/website images.
(2) No action taken. Mentioning a trademarked term is not an infringement.
Lol @ item 2 😂
Spriggy - Increased Referral Benefit ($40 Each for Referrer and Referee)
Dot point summary of their request is as follows:
We are being harassed and trolled in the comments. Our review sites are being bombarded with 1 and 2-Star reviews, slandering us.
This post is a direct violation of our Refer a Friend Terms and Conditions (https://www.spriggy.com.au/terms). All 'users' who have signed up using the codes mentioned are in breach of these terms.
Please delete the post, or remove all comments.
Email received from LiveScore Group legal counsel. To summarise,
We disagree with some of the requests. Published page did not take any content or media from LiveScore, except the LiveScore logo, which we have now replaced with our standard "copyright issue" image.
Using VPN and discussions around VPN usage is not illegal. However using VPN to access some content on the Internet might be violating content owner's terms of use, but that is a matter between the content owner and its users.
Suspend content poster's account
That part made me lol
Suspend content poster's account
Lol haha
Who is ozb legal council?
I was only trying to post a freebie. Some of us are poor. And need some ways to save money. Nothing wrong with that right?
Nope, don’t worry too much about it
Some merchants just like to request their stuff to be taken down here as we are too Professionals for them
Nope. Post as many freebies as you like.
Username checks
Double Credits @ Timezone. Note that the post was possibly posted by an employee of Timezone.
Received email from The Entertainment and Education Group (parent company of Timezone) to have the page unpublished, as
Deal unpublished. Related deal might get posted again when the offer becomes public.
12-Month Free Access to Chris Hemsworth's Centr App for AMEX Australia Card Members
Email from Centr that the offer has indeed expired in 2022, and people signed up using the link got charged immediately & contacted them to complaint.
Requested for the post to be removed.
Deal unpublished.
AI-Powered Business Idea Validation Tool - Full Report - 15% off - US$24.65 (~A$37.40) @ CodeMode
Rep claimed users submitted inappropriate entries to the store, which in turn caused the store to violate its agreement with its suppliers. The store may suffer unspecified penalty imposed by its supplier and this will threaten the store's viability.
Requested for the post to be removed.
Deal unpublished. Store permanently banned.
Can you give us notice before they're unpublished? I want to read the 'inappropriate use cases' from the comments on the thread :D
If Google cached it, it's easy, place the URL after https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:
So it's:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:…
mcncl on 04/12/2023 - 07:54
I asked it to validate my business idea, which was business idea validation. I called it ValidAIte. It didn’t seem to rate the idea too highly.
LMFAO Gold
Surely no ozbargainer paid $40 for this
Assuming they did this:
Free Preview Available:
Curious to see how our tool works? Try out the free preview and witness the power of AI in validating your business ideas.
BOGOF Burrito Bowl @ Guzman y Gomez via DoorDash, $5 Burrito + Service Fees + Delivery Fee @ Guzman Y Gomez via DoorDash, $10 Burritos Every Monday in March @ Guzman y Gomez via Menulog and Free Delivery Platform Wide @ Uber Eats.
Emails from Guzman Y Gomez claiming the OP has posted commercial sensitive & confidential internal communication material. The uploaded images containing screenshots of material that should not be made public, and these posts need to be removed.
We have determined that these screenshots are indeed internal memo that's not meant for public. Posts are unpublished.
Posting internal communication would be against the employment contract in most places, and might jeopardise the actual promotion. It is strongly discouraged here.
Free Delivery Platform Wide @ Uber Eats
Why is this associated with GYG? It was posted as platform wide excluding McDonald's.
It's actually a GYG-only deal, but the main issue is with the post containing screenshots of snippets of internal communication.
Alltrails+ 1 Year Subscription $17.99 (Was $35.99) @ Alltrails
Alltrails sent us a DMCA claiming "copyright infringement". Also received an IP Rights Infringement Notice from Alltrails via Red Points claiming "the following content is infringing upon their valid intellectual property rights". However so far only an URL is provided — no exact violation is mentioned.
I've sent back an email requesting for more information, and will update here if there's any followup. Meanwhile, I am replacing the Alltrails store image with our default "Removed due to copyright issues" image just in case.
Page
Sharp HEPA Air Purifier (21sqm Capacity) $50 @ Bunnings (Selected Stores)
Request
The deal poster has requested for removal of their deal post
Action
Request for deal removal was granted as it concerns the employee's job security. Deal unpublished and associated deal posts have been blocked.
Starting from 08-Jan-2021, Bunnings Warehouse associates (employees) can no longer submit deal posts for the store as it is a breach of their internal social media policy