Annette Sharp: Roxy Jacenko pays $76,000 in refunds for failed Boot Camp promotion

Roxy Jacenko has refunded $76k to disgruntled entrants who signed up for the aborted ‘$10m house giveaway’ promotion, writes Annette Sharp. But she hasn’t been left empty-handed.

Roxy Jacenko has paid out $76,019 to disgruntled entrants who signed up for a controversial aborted Roxy’s Bootcamp Pty Ltd “house giveaway” promotion, a sum representing just 10 per cent of the money she claimed to have set aside for refunds.

The figure can be revealed after the NSW Supreme Court last week ordered fledgling promotions company Roxy Bootcamp be wound up after the former spin doctor called in liquidators.

Jacenko had been a partner in the business along with Sydney businessmen Youssef Tleis and Kassim Alaouie, owners of the Cronulla house offered as first prize in a complicated promotion that Jacenko vigorously promoted to drive numbers to a PR conference she was running.

However, despite Jacenko’s sizeable 268k social media following, only around 7000 people entered, leaving the promoters hundreds of thousands shy of their intended target and putting a pin in chances of the house being won.

Jacenko’s $76k refund to out-of-pocket entrants who paid between $29 and $499 to participate stands in stark contrast to the sum she previously claimed to have set aside for refunds.

Roxy Jacenko has added another luxury handbag to her collection in the wash-up of her $10m house giveaway promotion legal case. Picture: Jenny Evans

Four weeks ago Jacenko said: “I stand by my offer to refund customers and as a result of this, $684K of my own, personal funds remain in my solicitor’s trust account”.

As reported here at the time, only claimants who lodged a request within a seven-day window set by Jacenko and given minimal exposure on her social media site, were eligible to receive the spruiker’s refund. The refund window opened on June 9 and closed June 15.

The revelation of the payout suggests some 90 per cent of promotion participants remain out of pocket and at the mercy of liquidators.

Jacenko is also pushing, this column hears, to have the $76k recouped from liquidators.

Last week Supreme Court Justice Anthony McGrath rejected Jacenko’s bid to have her legal costs paid.

It comes after Tleis and Alaouie had argued the promotion should proceed and a $250,000 cash prize be given away, along with a Birkin handbag and a Rolex watch.

Youssef Tleis, Kassim Alaouie and Jacenko promoting the Roxy’s Boot Camp giveaway. Picture: Instagram

“I do not consider it was unreasonable conduct of the proceedings by Mr Tleis to have opposed the application for a provisional liquidator on the basis the reputation of the company and Tleis Investments might be harmed,” Justice McGrath said.

“Nothing done by Mr Tleis in opposing the appointment of provisional liquidators and subsequently consenting provides justification for a finding that their conduct was unreasonable.”

In June a court heard Jacenko’s actions promoting the giveaway — which targeted her most faithful followers — may have been “deceptive and misleading”.

Meanwhile, on the upside for Jacenko, who is married to convicted insider trader Oliver Curtis, she can at least look forward to adding another Birkin handbag to her large collection. Lawyers for Jacenko have notified her former partners she plans to keep the Birkin and Rolex, both of which she purchased as part of her investment in the promotion.

Jacenko did not respond to questions emailed on Friday.

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