ASA Adjudication on We Buy Any Car Ltd

Ad

A TV ad for a vehicle buying service featured different coloured cartoon cars driving along a road and a soundtrack which repeated the lyric: "We buy any car dot com". On-screen text and lyrics also stated "Any, any, any; any make, any model, any age, any price from £50 to £100,000". On-screen text at the start of the ad also stated: "Conditions apply. Seller delivers own vehicle to webuyanycar.com". Final on-screen text stated "Webuyanycar.com. Discover the easy way to sell your car".

Issue

Two viewers, who contacted the advertiser to sell their vehicles but were told they could not take them, complained that the ad was misleading.

BCAP TV Code

Response

We Buy Any Car Ltd t/a webuyanycar.com (WBAC) said the first car was an unusual car, a limousine, and their website was not set up to produce automatic quotes for unusual vehicles. They said they produced quotes for unusual cars manually, by e-mail or telephone contact with the seller. They said in this case an administrative error had resulted in the sales team missing the seller's e-mail. They said they would be happy to purchase the limousine but said that, because it was a specialist vehicle, the seller might prefer to sell to a private buyer.

WBAC said, as far as they could ascertain, the second vehicle was a Mazda B2000 pick-up petrol truck. They said this particular model was classified by CAP Motor Research Ltd, commonly used as industry standard for vehicle data, as a Light Commercial Vehicle and sent evidence to show that. They said the data showed the vehicle in question was not a car but a light commercial vehicle and WBAC did not purchase vehicles outside the "car" category.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted that an administrative error had resulted in a break in communication with the first complainant, but that WBAC had apologised and offered to purchase the limousine in question if the complainant wished. We also noted that the second complainant's vehicle was a pick-up truck, which we understood was not classified as a "car" in the vehicle trade but as a light commercial vehicle. We concluded the claim "We buy any car dot com ... any make, any model, any age, any price from £50 to £100, 000" did not mislead on those grounds.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1, 5.2.1 and 5.2.3 (Misleading advertising) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)