Ad description
A website for East Midlands Airport Taxis, eastmidlandscabs.co.uk, seen in March 2017, included text which stated “Special Offers click to book East Midlands Airport to Nottingham via a Taxi Car £19.50”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood from the ad that the price for a taxi to Nottingham from East Midlands Airport would be £19.50 and was unable to achieve that price, challenged whether the ad was misleading.
Response
East Midlands Airport Taxis did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by East Midlands Airport Taxi’s lack of substantive response and apparent disregard for the Code, and ruled that they had breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future.
We considered that consumers would understand the claim to mean they would be able to get a taxi to Nottingham from East Midlands Airport for £19.50. The complainant told us they were unable to get a taxi for that price and that a customer representative had told them the price on the website was incorrect. Because the advertiser did not provide us with any evidence to demonstrate the price was achievable, we concluded the claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading Advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told East Midlands Airport Taxis to remove the claim and to ensure they used accurate prices in their advertising, and held evidence to substantiate those price claims. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance team.
