Office Supply Transactions; Solicitations for Telephone Directory Listings

1. Law
2. Georgia Code
3. Commerce and Trade
4. Selling and Other Trade Practices
5. Deceptive or Unfair Practices
6. Fair Business Practices Act
7. Office Supply Transactions; Solicitations for Telephone Directory Listings

1. Unfair or deceptive acts or practices by an office supplier in the conduct of office supply transactions in trade or commerce are declared unlawful.
2. By way of illustration only and without limiting the scope of subsection (a) of this Code section, the following practices by office suppliers in the conduct of office supply transactions are declared unlawful:
   1. Passing off goods or services as those of another;
   2. Falsely representing to any person that the office supplier is the usual supplier of goods, services, or property purchased by that person;
   3. Falsely representing to any person that the goods, services, or property sold, leased, rented, or shipped by the office supplier are the same brand as that person usually uses;
   4. Misrepresenting in any manner, including the use of a confusingly similar name, the manufacturer, supplier, or seller of the goods, services, or property;
   5. Representing that the prices an office supplier charges are less than a person usually pays for goods, services, or property, unless the goods, services, or property compared are identical and the representation is true;
   6. Shipping or supplying an amount or quantity of goods, services, or property to a person which is substantially greater than the amount or quantity which the person actually orders;
   7. Misrepresenting in any manner, including but not limited to failure to disclose material facts regarding the value of, any gift, prize, or award which will be given by an office supplier in conjunction with any office supply transaction;
   8. Falsely representing that there is an imminent price increase;
   9. Substituting any brand or quality of goods, services, or property for that actually ordered without prior approval of such substitution from the person ordering; or
   10. 1. Solicitation for inclusion in the listing of a telephone classified advertising directory unless such solicitation form has prominently printed therein at least one inch apart from any other text on the form and in type size and boldness equal to or greater than any other type size and boldness on the form the words:

          "THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION."

       2. For the purposes of this paragraph, the term "telephone classified advertising directory" refers to any telephone classified advertising directory which is distributed to some or all telephone subscribers in any area of the state and includes such directories distributed by telephone service companies as well as such directories distributed by other parties.
3. An office supplier may not by contract, agreement, or otherwise limit the operation of this part, notwithstanding any other provision of law.

(Code 1981, §10-1-393.1, enacted by Ga. L. 1986, p. 1046, § 2; Ga. L. 1995, p. 733, § 1; Ga. L. 2015, p. 1088, § 2/SB 148.)

Editor's notes.

- Ga. L. 2015, p. 1088, § 2/SB 148, effective July 1, 2015, reenacted this Code section without change.

Law reviews.

- For comment, "The Georgia Fair Business Practices Act: Business As Usual," see 9 Ga. St. U.L. Rev. 453 (1993).

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