Ad description
Claims on a website for a plumbers, seen on www.asapplumbers.co.uk, stated "ASAP Plumbers is a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week emergency and non emergency plumbing company based in London, covering all aspects of plumbing installation and repairs from boiler and central heating installation to burst water main repair ... 24/7 ROUND THE CLOCK We are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ...".
Issue
The complainant, who said she telephoned the advertiser and was told that they were not always available on Sunday and some Saturdays, challenged whether the claim that they were on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, was misleading.
Response
ASAP Plumbers said they had operated for a number of years and had carried out thousands of jobs with satisfied customers. They also said they attended jobs when requested but that, if a customer was not willing to pay for the call out, they reserved the right not to attend. They said they offered a service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whether that was giving free advice to customers over the telephone, or sending an engineer out to customers to assess and resolve a problem. They understood that the complainant telephoned and was able to speak to a member of staff and believed that this demonstrated that their advice service was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted the website stated "ASAP Plumbers is a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week emergency and non emergency plumbing company based in London, covering all aspects of plumbing installation and repairs from boiler and central heating installation to burst water main repair ... 24/7 ROUND THE CLOCK We are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ...". We considered readers would understand this to mean that ASAP Plumbers provided emergency and non-emergency services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which included all aspects of plumbing installation and repairs. In the absence of any evidence to demonstrate that the advertisers were available to offer that service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we concluded that the claims had not been substantiated and were misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told ASAP Plumbers not to claim that they offered emergency and non-emergency services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unless they held evidence to demonstrate that they did.
