Ad description
A website offering payment for silver, www.bestpriceforsilver.co.uk stated "Request your FREE silver pack to receive PROMPT VALUATION, the BEST PRICE FOR SILVER & PAYMENT".
Issue
Two complainants, who had not received payment for their silver, challenged whether the claim was misleading.
Response
London Gold Refinery Ltd, trading as Best Price For Silver, said they dealt with all items promptly. They said the website did not imply a specific time frame but that they valued items without delay. When a customer accepted the price given to them they endeavoured to make a payment either by BACS bank transfer, cheque or cash with immediate effect and within 24 hours of the customer's acceptance of the price.
They said they received one of the complainant's items on 29 December 2012 and, due to an error whereby his items missed a number of testing processes, did not make him an offer until 4 March 2013. They were unable to submit further evidence demonstrating that they offered prompt valuation because it would contain customer details which, due to data protection, they could not share with us.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA provided London Gold Refinery Ltd with the details of one of the complainants and asked them to explain his experience. We also asked them to supply evidence that supported the claim that all their customers received "prompt valuation" and assured them that their customer details would not be disclosed. We considered consumers would not expect a service described as "prompt" to take longer than two months and in the absence of further evidence to support the claim, considered it had not been substantiated. We therefore concluded that it was misleading.
The claim breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
and
3.3
3.3
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
(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 claim must not appear again in its current form. We told London Gold Refinery Ltd, trading as Best Price For Silver, not to claim that consumers could receive "prompt valuation" unless they supplied evidence to substantiate it.
