ASA Adjudication on Triangle Taxis
Triangle Taxis
12 Babylon Way
Eastbourne
BN20 9DL
Date:
22 February 2012
Media:
Internet (on own site)
Sector:
Business
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
A11-182274
Background
Ad
Claims on triangletaxis.com, for a taxi company, viewed in December 2011, on the page headed "About Us", stated "Triangle Taxis We have more than 10 years [sic] experience. All our associated drivers have Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) enhanced clearance".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "All our associated drivers have Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) enhanced clearance" was misleading and could be substantiated, because they understood one of the drivers did not have a clean CRB.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
Response
Triangle Taxis said that if there were any concerns with disclosures on CRB notifications, Wealden District Council would not issue the driver with a licence to trade. They explained that the Council have a requirement that all taxi drivers have a new CRB carried out every three years. They said they did not think that the claim "All our associated drivers have Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) enhanced clearance" should be interpreted as claiming that all their drivers have a clean CRB. They stated that the evidence was that the taxi driver held a current taxi driver licence and if there had been anything to cause the police concern that information would be passed to the licensing officer and the licence would be withdrawn without notice. They said the alleged incident had been dealt with through the necessary channels and no police caution was issued.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim "All our associated drivers have Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) enhanced clearance" to mean that all of Triangle Taxis drivers had a current clean CRB. We noted that the taxi driver mentioned by the complainant still held a current licence, however we understood that would still be the case even if a police caution had been given. Because we had not seen any evidence to demonstrate that the taxi driver had a current clean CRB, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.50 (Endorsements and testimonials).
Action
The ad must not appear again. We told Triangle Taxis not to imply that all their taxi drivers had a current clean CRB if that was not the case.
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