Construct Data/Fairguide Beware!
22 May 2006
UFI joins with the exhibition industry associations of several other countries to strongly condemn the actions of the Austrian based Fairguide.com/Construct Data Verlag with their misleading services to exhibitors. Construct Data, through its online FairGuide, claims to be offering online services and uses a form which resembles an organiser's free catalogue listing service, inviting exhibitors to sign and return the form for an entry in an on-line directory. Exhibitors who sign and return the form are then contracted into a three-year, non-retractable agreement, which could cost the exhibitor a significant amount of money, with no foreseeable benefits.
Fairguide.com/Construct Data Verlag has no connection with exhibition organisers or any of their events.
It is important that all companies who are exhibiting are made aware of this. FairGuide.com/Construct Data Verlag targets companies through legitimate exhibition guides aimed at exhibitors. Their current activities have targeted companies throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia.
Construct Data has engaged the services of Austrian debt collection agency Gravis Inkasso Gmbh and Swiss debt collection agency Premium Recovery AG (a Construct Data subsidiary).
We strongly advise our UFI members, all exhibitors and the entire exhibition community, to be most vigilant against this and similar organisations. These organisations can cause extreme damage and harm to the reputation of our exhibition industry as exhibitors believe that fair organisers are cooperating in such practices.
If approached by Construct Data exhibitors should immediately contact their local Austrian Embassy to provide information concerning problems with this organisation. UFI, The Osterreichisches Patentamt, the Austrian Protective Association against Unfair Competition, and the Austrian Advertising Council have each taken steps to have Construct Data cease these misleading practices.
It is UFI’s intention to see that, through coordinated effort and vigilance, the interests of the international exhibition industry – and its client exhibitors – are safeguarded.
More information is available on the UFI website at www.ufi.org
Source : UFI Info 2006 (UFI - The global association of the exhibition industry)
See the letter from the Austrian Embassy to the ASPERAPI (Indonesia Exhibtion Companies Association), including a draft of the cancellation |
