Competition watchdog the ACCC has issued two infringement notices to online photobook business Tomsem Consolidated for allegedly misleading of customers with product reviews.
The ACCC alleges PhotobookShop, the trading name of Tomsem Consolidated, paid influencers in the form of gifts to produce social media reviews.
The company would then post the reviews on social media without disclosing it had paid for them.
The gifted products were valued at $50 to $400, with the ACCC alleging 107 incidents between August 2024 and September 2025.
“Businesses must not mislead consumers by posing misleading reviews or failing to disclose when an influencer has been paid to create social media content, whether that co-payment is free gifted products or services or money,” said ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe.
“Influencers can be a powerful marketing tool, and the Australian Consumer Law applies as much to the digital world as it does to bricks and mortar retailers.”
The second infringement alleged PhotobookShop edited a pre-commissioned influence review to appear more favourable, before posting it to its Instagram page.
The video was edited to remove "negative" wording, with changes made to the influencers description of the product, omitting the words “a bit too fiddly” and “a bit confusing”, so the video was viewed as more positive.
The ACCC alleges the edits to the video changed the overall impression of the influencer’s intended review.
“When a business posts a review on social media, consumers would reasonably assume that the post genuinely reflects the review. In the case of PhotobookShop, we consider the review it posted did not reflect the overall impression of the influencer’s review, and appeared more favourable to PhotobookShop,” said Lowe.
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