ASA Adjudication on ScottishPower Energy Retail Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad, for ScottishPower, stated “Beat price rises, fix yours today.” Further text stated “Don’t hang around, call today … call 0800 xxx xxxx 9am-9pm Monday to Friday, 9am-1pm Saturday”.

Issue

The complainant, who could not get through on the telephone and was eventually told that the offer had been withdrawn after two days, objected that the ad was misleading and did not make clear that the price fix was available for a limited time only.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Scottish Power Energy Retail (ScottishPower) said their ad campaign began on 30 July 2008, and on the following day, Centrica (British/Scottish Gas) publicly announced their price increases.  They explained that Centrica was the largest supplier of domestic gas and electricity in Great Britain and therefore had the largest number of customers affected by increases.  They pointed out that price increases were commercially sensitive and their release was therefore very closely monitored and managed by the company making the increase, particularly for items important to household budgets such as gas and electricity.  As a result, ScottishPower along with other energy suppliers had had no advance warning of the price increase.  They argued that suppliers could not base their commercial decisions on speculation.  They added that Martin Lewis [a savings expert] had appeared on GMTV in response to Centricas announcement and advised viewers to consider ScottishPowers offer.  They explained that those events had resulted in a huge increase in the volume of calls asking about their offer; they sent information about the number of calls received each day from 30 July to 5 August.  They said due to the unexpected level of demand they stopped the campaign after two days on 1 August, and pointed out that there had been a marked decrease in the number of calls immediately after that.  

ScottishPower said, because of their experience of previous campaigns for their Fixed Price products over the past six years, they had not anticipated such an enormous leap in the number of calls over the two-day period.  They sent a table that showed the number of calls received in a similar campaign from January/February 2008.  They said in the previous campaigns they had not placed any qualifications about limited availability or closing dates and, based on that length of experience, they had not thought there was a need to do so on this occasion.  They explained that they had been unable to answer all 45,519 calls received on 31 July and 1 August; in fact, they had answered only 1,179 calls due to congestion on the lines, and in addition some of their telephone lines and computer systems had crashed due to the unprecedented influx of calls.  

They maintained that they had not intended to mislead customers, and that they had believed they would be able to meet the normal anticipated level of demand.  They confirmed that as a result of the campaign in question they would include a "Limited availability" disclaimer in future ads.  They believed that giving a time limit would not be of value for customers because Fixed Price products were more likely to be limited by an upper limit on the number of customers.  They said they had received one complaint direct and as a gesture of goodwill had provided the offer to that customer.  They offered to do the same for the current complainant.  

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted ScottishPowers argument that the increased demand for the offer was due to circumstances outside their control.  We noted, due to Centricas price increase announcement and the subsequent recommendation on national television, ScottishPower had received 15 times as many calls on both 31 July and 1 August, when the complainant attempted to contact them, than they had on 30 July.  We acknowledged that, because of line congestion and technical difficulties, they had been able to answer only a small proportion of those calls, and had ended the ad campaign and the offer on 1 August.  

We noted a previous campaign for Fixed Price had attracted calls across a five-week period and that there had been no peaks in demand at any point.  We considered that, because the Centrica price increase had been kept confidential from energy suppliers until the date of the announcement, ScottishPower could not have reasonably anticipated the sudden influx of calls.  We noted the action they had taken to end the offer on 1 August, and that the volume of calls received decreased to normal levels on 2 August.  We noted ScottishPowers intention to include a disclaimer about limited availability in future advertising. However, because of the exceptional circumstances at the time the ad appeared, we considered that they could not have known in advance that demand would far exceed their estimates.  We concluded that the ad was not in breach of the Code.  

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 16.4 (Availability) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)