This year's Seven Masters of the Shonk have been named and shamed by consumer advocacy group Choice, with Thermomix and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia attracting the highest number of complaints.
There were a record 1041 brands nominated for a Shonky award this year by consumers, an award given out to brands which had made especially unscrupolous claims in the past year, or delivered products not fit for purpose.
As SBS presenter Marc Fennell put it: "the Shonky's are the national bullshit detector".
The winners (or losers, whatever way you look at it) this year were Commonwealth Bank, Arnott's Tim Tams, S26 Gold Toddler and Junior formula, BankWest, Thermomix, KMart Swimwear, and the Amazon Kindle.
The Commonwealth Bank was awarded a Shonky for presiding over one of the worst financial planning disasters in national history, issuing a public apology, and then continuing to lobby the federal government to water down financial planning laws.
A senate inquiry found that some of Commbank's financial planners orchestrated a "calculated deceit" and deliberately, and in some cases fraudulently, put clients into risky and inappropriate investments to meet bonus goals.
Meanwhile, Tim Tams took home a Shonky for it's peanut flavoured biscuits, which contained no actual peanuts.
To make it even more galling, there were two fewer biscuits per pack despite the packaging being the same size (but not weight) of the regular variety.
The Amazon Kindle earned its gong for some creative accounting meant to convince consumers that one charge of the e-reader would provide eight weeks of battery life.
Buried in the fine print was the fact that the Kindle's claims were based on 30 minutes of use per day, meaning the actual battery life is 28 hours, far from the eight weeks promised.
S-26 Gold Toddler and Junior milk drinks, which are marketed to parents concerned about ensuring their children receive appropriate nutrients, despite the fact that they aren't needed for healthy children over the age of one.
Another "winner" announced at the event was Kmart swimwear, which launched bathers which may become transparent when wet and mustn't come in contact with rough surfaces, heated pools or harsh chemicals.
Yet, this is pretty much what you run into when going to the beach or pool, which is when you'd actually be using the product.
Meanwhile BankWest, which offers a high, teaser interest rate of 5.75% for their children's savings account before slashing the rate after a year to about 1%.
Last but not least, Vorwerk, makers of the cult all-in-one mixer the Thermomix, took out an award for their choppy communication around the launch of a new model.
Vorwerx allegedly repeatedly denied a new model was in the works, only to spring a surprise on the market by releasing a new model overnight, making many people's investment in the previous version superceded overnight.
Choice chief executive Alan Kirkland said while it was fun to name and shame brands, Choice would have prefer they didn't have to.
"We love the Shonkys...but we would love them even more if we didn't have to hold them," Kirkland said.
"Overblown advertising, products that don't work, sneaky price rises, dodgy environmental claims, junk food dressed up as health food and products that are downright dangerous.
"What strikes me about our list of winners this year though is that they include some of the biggest brands in Australia and internationally.
"These are big companies, companies that have built their brands on trust in the minds of their consumers and their profits, and they are breaching that trust."
You can vote on which brand should be labelled the shonkiest by heading to http://www.choice.com.au/shonkyspoll
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