ASA Adjudication on Male Companion Services

Ad

A sponsored link, on Google, for a male escort agency was headlined "Straight Males Required”. Further text stated “www.adultjobfinder.co.uk No Registration Fees Top Rates Paid Work Tonight, Clients Available".

Issue

The complainant, who successfully applied for a job but was charged a registration fee, challenged whether:

1. the claim "No Registration Fees" was misleading and could be substantiated, and

2. the claim "Paid Work Tonight, Clients Available" was misleading and could be substantiated, because he did not believe the advertisers had any work to offer.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Male Companion Services (MCS) did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by MCS's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code clause 2.6 (Non-response).  We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.

Because MCS did not provide evidence that showed there was no charge for applicants to register, and because they did not provide evidence that they had any immediate work available, we considered that their claims had not been substantiated and concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.6 (Non-response), 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 52.2 (Employment and business opportunities).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We told the advertisers to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising again and asked CAP to inform its members of the problem with them.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)