ASA Adjudication on Ebuyer (UK) Ltd
Ebuyer (UK) Ltd
Off Ferry Road
Howden
East Yorkshire
DN14 7UW
Date:
11 July 2012
Media:
E-mail, Internet (sales promotion)
Sector:
Retail
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
A12-194564
Background
Ad
A promotional e-mail and claims on the website www.ebuyer.com related to a tablet PC:
a. The e-mail had the subject heading "… Save £120 on Storage Options Scroll Extreme Tablet PC". The product featured in the body of the e-mail and was labelled "SAVE £120 … £179.99".
b. The product page on the website included text that stated ""£178.98 inc. vat". The text "£299.99" was crossed out and further text stated "Save £120.01".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the savings claims in ads (a) and (b) were misleading and could be substantiated.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
Response
Ebuyer (UK) Ltd (Ebuyer) said they were willing to amend their advertising. They said they had misunderstood the advertising rules and had new staff. Ebuyer said the complainant had raised a valid point.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA acknowledged that Ebuyer were willing to amend their advertising. We noted, however, that we had not seen evidence to demonstrate that the 'was' price of £299.99 was a genuine previous selling price and that the advertised savings of £120 and £120.01 were therefore genuine. In the absence of such evidence, we concluded that the savings claims were misleading.
Ads (a) and (b) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Ebuyer not to make savings claims in future unless they were in a position to demonstrate that they were based on genuine previous selling prices.
