Would-be slimmers who used the now-discredited Swiss Slimming and Health Institute's services will receive refunds after Australian Competition and Consumer Commission action. Extensive advertising by the Institute claimed that weight loss could be easily achieved by 'body wraps' - where a slimmer sat wrapped in cold bandages.
In fact, any weight loss achieved could be attributed to a harsh dieting regime slimmers were encouraged to follow under the program. Under Federal Court orders handed down by Justice Murray Wilcox in Sydney on Friday, Swisslim and its director Gerhard Hassler were ordered to pay to the ACCC $1,327,657 by way of compensation and $142.677.66 by way of interest. 'When the liquidator of Swisslim makes a 'cent in the dollar' payment to the ACCC, we will refund the relevant share to each former Swisslim client,' ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today.
In an earlier judgment, Justice Wilcox commented that the information given to the clients about the regime 'is all a nonsense'. 'They all go in there but then they sign up and there seems to be consistent theme through the ones I have looked at and they are told, this is the deal, no worry about diets, they are then put on what is called a detoxification program, which make it sound even more horrible than calling it a diet, and they are told to eat fruit and vegetables for a week. Now, there is no real surprise if during that they lose some weight.' T
he ACCC took representative action on behalf of more than 500 former Institute clients who were enticed to join the program through 'hard-sell' tactics by Institute staff which often played on individuals' insecurities about their weight. The ACCC was assisted in this matter by the NSW Department of Fair Trading.