ASA Adjudication on Eazyfone Group Ltd

Ad

A TV ad, for mobile phone recycling envirofone.com, showed a man walking into his loft. The voice-over stated "Do you know that somewhere in your home there could be a valuable object but you may not even realise just how much it's worth. If you have an old mobile phone envirofone wants to know. Just log on to envirofone.com and enter the make and model of your phone. We could offer you 20, 50 or maybe over 100 pounds. So why not recycle your old phone, you'll get cash and it’s good for the environment".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the claim that envirofone recycled old phones was misleading, because they sold some old phones for a profit.

BCAP TV Code

Response

Eazyfone said they were a commercial organisation and they did not attempt to hide that in any way.  They said their objective was to buy and then sell mobile phones to generate a profit each month.  They said to secure the best possible price for their consumers they categorised their inbound phones and then recycled them in one of three ways.  They broke down some phones into their constituent parts through a recognised and certified partner, although only a very small value could be recovered in that way.  They said they could, where possible, refurbish the phones and re-sell them through Western European markets.  The remaining phones were tested and graded for sale to developing countries where mobile phones would otherwise be prohibitively expensive but were reported to be a contributor to growth in local GDP.

Eazyfone said they believed it was better to recycle through re-use before destructive recycling and consequently they worked to keep the re-use mix as high as they possibly could.  They said that through their efforts they had bought over £2.5 million worth of phones from schools and charities and £4 million worth from consumers; those phones would otherwise be filling a landfill site.

Clearcast said they supported Eazyfone's comments.  They said the ad merely stated that if someone had an old mobile, rather than throw it out they could sell it to Eazyfone who would recycle it.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted Eazyfone either broke down the phones they purchased into their constituent parts, refurbished the phones and sold them to Western European markets or sold them to developing countries.

We noted the ad did not state that Eazyfone did not make a profit on the phones and we considered that most viewers were likely to understand that Eazyfone was a commercial company.  We noted the ad merely stated that the phones would be "recycled" and we considered that viewers were likely to understand that that included re-using the phones, for example by selling them on to other markets.  We concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1 (Misleading advertising) and 5.2.3 (Qualifications) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)