A toaster that won't toast has taken home a gong at an awards ceremony calling out brands for their bad behaviour - with the group who tested the appliance initially believing they must have picked up a faulty model.
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Consumer group Choice named seven 'winners' at their annual Shonky Awards on Thursday, with a fake cure for insomnia and the Commonwealth Bank's Dollarmites scheme named and shamed alongside the KitchenAid's 2-Slice KMT2116 toaster.
"(The toaster) was so bad that it shocked Choice expert testers," chief executive Alan Kirkland told reporters in Sydney.
"They took it back for another one, and then for a third and it still failed its one job - to make toast."
On a more serious note Choice also pinged 14 manufacturers of portable cots that it says should be recalled, with most of the products tested posing a risk of either head entrapment or suffocation.
"They're really serious risks," Mr Kirkland told AAP.
"We're also calling for stronger laws to stop these things getting onto the market in the first place."
The Commonwealth Bank's Dollarmites scheme was slammed for targeting school children with "subversive sales tactics under the guise of youth education".
"It's astonishing in light of the royal commission that we're letting a bank into the schoolyard to give out branded marketing material, to have that sent out through school newsletters," Mr Kirkland said.
"There is no place for banks to be marketing their products in the schoolyard."
Supplement brand Bioglan was singled out for questionable claims of being able to cure insomnia with a product found to be little more than a placebo.
A sugary Kellogg's Nutri-Grain drink with almost triple the amount of sugar than protein also got a Shonky, as did several magnetic therapy devices and a Marriott vacation timeshare deal.
Australian Associated Press
