Ad description

Claims on the Pass Ur Test website, viewed on 31 October 2011, included, on the 'prices' page, "Pass In a Week  Pass In A Week 20 Hour - Inlcudes [sic] 1 Practical Driving Test ... Intensive Courses ... 15 Hour Intensive Course + 5 hours free - Inlcudes [sic] 1 Practical Driving Test".  The price for both courses was stated as £340, with a deposit of £70.

Issue

Pass N Go (UK) Ltd (Pass N Go) challenged whether the claim "... + 5 hours free", in relation to Pass Ur Test's 15 hour intensive course, was misleading, because the price was the same as their "Pass In a Week 20 Hour" course.

Response

Pass Ur Test said the courses had always been the same price and they believed there genuinely were five hours free.  They said the original price of the courses was £382; £62 of which was the cost of the driving test and the remaining £320 meant the usual lesson price of £18 was discounted to £16 per hour.  Pass Ur Test said they had restructured the prices when the "... + 5 hours free" was extended to all customers, rather than being available only to beginners.  Instead of discounting the lesson price, as they had done in the past, they now calculated the cost of 15 lessons at full price (£270) and added the cost of the practical test, plus an admin fee of £8, which brought the total to £340.  They said they used the same formula for all their courses.       

They said they were prepared to amend the wording of the claims and intended to now base the claims on the already reduced price of £16 per hour and to give a varying number of lessons free dependent on the course length, which would make the packages slightly more expensive. However, they believed the lessons offered in addition to the advertised length of the course were genuinely free.  Pass Ur Test said their business model had always involved offering free lessons and it had been successful, so the offers had been extended after their initial promotion.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Pass Ur Test were prepared to amend their advertising.  We also noted, however, that marketers must not describe an element of a package as "free" if that element was included in the package price, unless consumers were likely to regard it as an additional benefit because it had recently been added to the package without increasing its price.  We noted the ad described the 15-hour intensive course as having "... + 5 hours free" but that the price of that course was the same as the "Pass In a Week 20 Hour" course, which was not described as having a "free" element.  We therefore considered the "... + 5 hours free" could not be described as "free" and that the changes Pass Ur Test proposed to make to their "free" claims were not sufficient to comply with the Code, in particular because the "free" element had not recently been added to the package and without increasing its price.  We concluded that the ad was 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  3.25 3.25 Marketers must not describe an element of a package as "free" if that element is included in the package price unless consumers are likely to regard it as an additional benefit because it has recently been added to the package without increasing its price.  (Free).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We told Pass Ur Test not to describe an element of a package as "free" if that element was included in the package price, unless consumers were likely to regard it as an additional benefit because it had recently been added to the package without increasing its price.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.25    


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