The discount supermarket chain Aldi has paid a survey company thousands of dollars to stamp its brand with a "five-star rating" for having the most satisfied customers.
But competing data from industry-respected global market research firm Nielsen shows the two supermarket chains that fared worst in the Canstar Blue survey - Woolworths and Coles - consistently top the rankings for overall customer satisfaction.
An Aldi spokeswoman said: "Aldi was given and accepted the opportunity to further promote this award win. This was after the Canstar Blue award had been voted on, therefore would have no effect on those consumers' decisions."
Aldi are believed to have paid Canstar Blue $10,000 for the licence to promote its five-star ratings in marketing and advertising initiatives for the next 12 months. Canstar Blue's practice of selling ratings to everything from fast food chains to luxury carmakers - exposed by The Sunday Telegraph last year - has infuriated firms that have missed out.
"Independent surveys can be helpful to consumers as long as they are fair and representative, but hanging some stars above the door doesn't fool customers because they rightly judge you on what they find every time they shop, not once a year," he said.
Woolworths spokeswoman Kristen Young said store managers' bonuses were now based on customer satisfaction.
"One of the key scores is called the net promoter score, which is how likely a customer is to recommend shopping at that particular Woolworths store to a friend or family member," she said.
The survey, conducted by independent research firm Colmar Brunton on behalf of Canstar Blue, consulted 2339 respondents, each of whom had purchased something from any given supermarket in the previous month.
Although Aldi scored highest of all the shopping chains in the overall satisfaction category the research firm would not reveal how many respondents selected the chain, citing confidentiality.
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