Latest / What the Flux / Webjet hit with $9 million of turbulence | Aussie banks refund millions to customers | Anthropic faces class action suit

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Webjet hit with $9 million of turbulence | Aussie banks refund millions to customers | Anthropic faces class action suit · What the Flux

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is what the flax.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm Brett and I'm Justin and it's Wednesday, the thirtieth
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: of July.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Douzyboy. Anset Australia, the Australian airline that went under about
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, is back, but not as you
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: know at this one. The trademark for Anset has recently lapped.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: So now a local entrepreneur has created an AI powered
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  Speaker 1: travel agency under the Anset names, essentially trying to leverage
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that brand to grow a brand new business.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Bizarre. There are only two days left to do this
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: month's academy, where we are dishing out three hundred dollars
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: worth of prizes. It's all about getting into the property
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: market sooner, in particular learning about lender's mortgage insurance. So
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: if you want to learn more about how to get
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: into the market, make sure to check out the academy
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and win some prizes.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Three generous stories today, Jussy Boy, let's do it for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: our first Webjet has been fined nine million dollars by
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the a Triple C after they admitted to misleading customers
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: with false advertising.
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  Speaker 2: The Federal court wasn't on where Jet's list of top
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  Speaker 2: travel destinations be man, So what is it? Story?
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  Speaker 1: So Webjet was founded in nineteen ninety eight and it's
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  Speaker 1: going to become one of Australia's largest online travel agency.
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  Speaker 2: Now. Back in November twenty twenty four, the Atriable C
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  Speaker 2: launched an investigation into webjets the misleading its customers.
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  Speaker 1: Well jusiboy, Webjet has now admitted to excluding compulsory fees
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  Speaker 1: from the price of flights advertised. Between twenty eighteen and
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: Webjet was advertising airfares for as well as eighteen dollars,
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  Speaker 2: but then the customers got whacked with extra fees at checkout.
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  Speaker 1: But that's not all juzyboy. In some cases, Webjets sent
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: an email confirming the booking and then requested additional payments
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: averaging seven hundred and seventy dollars to complete the booking.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Surprise, surprise. This behavior does not live up to the
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  Speaker 2: ariable c's standard a fair trade and competition.
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  Speaker 1: So now the Federal court has hit Webjet with a
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  Speaker 1: nine million dollar five.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a strong reminder that when you make promises
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  Speaker 2: to customers that you've got to follow through it.
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  Speaker 1: So what's the key learning here?
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  Speaker 2: False advertising might help land a quick sale, but in
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  Speaker 2: the long run, damages brand reputation at big time.
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  Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, research shows that eighty one percent
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  Speaker 1: of consumers need to trust a brand in order to
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  Speaker 1: consider buying from them, So be man.
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  Speaker 2: Competing on load prices can be a major value proposition
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  Speaker 2: for businesses.
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  Speaker 1: But luring in customers with prices that are too good
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  Speaker 1: to be true can quickly backfire when customers realize they've
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: been faded.
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  Speaker 2: Remember when Quantus was also called out by the ahable
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  Speaker 2: C the misleading customers with ghost flight bookings.
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  Speaker 1: For almost two years during COVID, Quantus continued to sell
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  Speaker 1: tickets for flights they knew were getting canceled.
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  Speaker 2: There is nothing worse than a canceled flight, nothing.
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  Speaker 1: Yep, and Quantas paid the price for straight up deceiving
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  Speaker 1: their customers.
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  Speaker 2: The federal courts slapped Contus with a one hundred million
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  Speaker 2: dollar five.
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  Speaker 1: And shortly after a survey of field, Quantus dropped to
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  Speaker 1: the second least trusted brand in Australia.
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  Speaker 2: So while it might be tempting for businesses to do
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  Speaker 2: things to increase their short term sales, the long term consequences.
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  Speaker 1: Are simply not worth it for our second story, Three
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  Speaker 1: major Australian banks will refund nearly sixty million bucks to
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable customers after Acid found banks were charging customers fees
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  Speaker 1: they couldn't afford.
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  Speaker 2: Big day for Acid, Beeman tell me more well.
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  Speaker 1: An zed at Westpac and Bendigo Bank are among Australia's
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  Speaker 1: biggest retail banks.
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  Speaker 2: They sell everything from bank accounts, some mortgages to business
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  Speaker 2: lending across the whole of Australia.
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  Speaker 1: Between them, they have over twenty million customers, so the man.
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  Speaker 2: In July last year, ASIK, the financial watchhog and professional
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  Speaker 2: bank party pooper released the report in investigated bank fees.
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  Speaker 1: At first, they looked at unreasonable fees charged to vulnerable Australians.
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  Speaker 2: But after digging a little deeper, ASCIK found that the
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  Speaker 2: fee issue turned out to be much more widespread.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking excessive fees charged to seven hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 1: thousand low income customers.
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  Speaker 2: And ACIK argues that the banks didn't act fairly and
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  Speaker 2: ethically in charging these.
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  Speaker 1: Fees, especially with many of these customers on Centrelink or
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  Speaker 1: being pensioners.
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  Speaker 2: And not using many of these account features.
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  Speaker 1: So now the banks are coughing up nearly sixty million
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  Speaker 1: bucks in refund and ANZ is the biggest, and yep,
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  Speaker 1: that's on top of the thirty three million bucks they've
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  Speaker 1: already refunded.
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  Speaker 2: Then it's a reminder of the cross subsidization that happens
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  Speaker 2: in one size fits all products.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting, So what's the key learning here?
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  Speaker 2: Cross subsidization is when a company charges many customers the
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  Speaker 2: same flat fee, regardless of how much they use the features,
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  Speaker 2: and that means some customers end up paying more than
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  Speaker 2: their fair share to cover the costs for others. In
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  Speaker 2: the case of banks, high fee transaction accounts often include
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: branch access ATM withdrawals, overdraft facilities, and these are expensive
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  Speaker 2: for banks to maintain, so rather than pricing each feature separately,
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  Speaker 2: banks apply a flat fee.
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  Speaker 1: To everyone, including customers who rarely or even never use
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  Speaker 1: those services.
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  Speaker 2: In effect, lower income or less active customers end up
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  Speaker 2: cross subsidizing higher cost users.
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  Speaker 1: So now, Jazi Boyd, the banks are moving over more
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  Speaker 1: than eight hundred thousand customers to lower fee accounts.
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  Speaker 2: Which will save those customers more than forty million dollars annually,
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  Speaker 2: which is great but also makes you wonder why didn't
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  Speaker 2: the banks do this sooner? For our third and final story. Anthropic,
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  Speaker 2: the AI startup backed by Amazon, is facing a class
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  Speaker 2: action lawsuit from authors who claim their work was used
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  Speaker 2: without permission.
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  Speaker 1: Chatbot gets sued for knowing too much tell me more?
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  Speaker 2: Okay. So. Anthropic is the San Francisco based AI company.
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  Speaker 2: It was founded in twenty twenty one by Surprise, Surprise,
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  Speaker 2: ex OpenAI staff.
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  Speaker 1: Its crown jewel is a chatbot named Claude who's basically
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: out here boxing on against chat GVT and Perplexity for
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  Speaker 1: the AI heavyweight title.
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  Speaker 2: And be man. Despite being quite Anthropics raised billions in
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: funded yep.
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  Speaker 1: They recently raised three and a half billion US dollars
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  Speaker 1: and are now valued at more than sixty billion US dollars.
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  Speaker 2: But while Claude's been getting smarter, authors have been getting angry.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: At Juzzi Boy. A group of authors claim that Anthropic
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: downloaded as many as seven million pirated books to train
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  Speaker 1: its AI.
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  Speaker 2: Which violates copyright laws, and.
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  Speaker 1: Now a US federal judge has ruled that the group
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of authors can sue Anthropic as a class action, and that.
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  Speaker 2: Means it would let all the authors in the US
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  Speaker 2: whose books have been allegedly pirated get in on the class.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Action and Jazzy Boy. If it's ruled that Anthropic did
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  Speaker 1: actually pirate these books, this class action could be extremely costly.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So what is the key landing year A class action
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  Speaker 1: lawsuit is when a group of people with similar complaints
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  Speaker 1: sue as one the business has been man These suits
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: can be extremely risky financially, and it's not just because
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of potential payouts, but also because of the reputational damage.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: In Anthropics case, the class action includes potentially every US
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  Speaker 2: author whose work was scraped without permission.
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  Speaker 1: And for high growth tech companies like Anthropy, these legal
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  Speaker 1: risks can die directly impact valuations and partnerships and community trust.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: For example, Jazi Boy remember in Meta formerly known as
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Facebook was hit with the Cambridge Analytica class action.
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  Speaker 2: I DO and it's market value dropped one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: thirty four billion US dollars in just a few day.
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  Speaker 1: And it ended up settling the case for seven hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty five million US dollars and be man.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Anthropic isn't just facing lawsuits from author.
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  Speaker 1: Now, They're also facing lawsuits from Universal Music and Reddit
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  Speaker 1: as well.
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  Speaker 2: So Anthropic's whole business could turn on its head if
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  Speaker 2: the court's rule. It was built on pirated content, Huge
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: box Sam. There is cash to be one in the
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Academy this month and knowledge to be learned. It's all
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: about getting into the property market, suit and learning how
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Elmi can help you get there. So if you want
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: to learn more and with surprises and make sure to
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: check out the Academy for the last two days of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the month.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Friday.