Ad description
The cellphoneshop.net website, stated "United Kingdom Cell Phone Shop 0800 …".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied the advertiser was UK-based.
Response
CellPhoneShop.net did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by CellPhoneShop.net's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 1.7 Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code. (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
The ASA noted the text "United Kingdom" was stated at the head of every page of the website above the company name, a 0800 telephone number given as a point of contact and product prices were quoted in pounds sterling. It was reasonable, therefore, for consumers to infer that CellPhoneShop.net was UK based. We understood, however, that the company headquarters were based in California. In the absence of a response to explain whether CellPhoneShop.net had a UK presence, we considered that the website was likely to mislead. In addition, no information regarding the company's details was provided anywhere on the website and we considered that a geographic address should have been made available to consumers in order to comply with the rules on Distance Selling.
The ad breached rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
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.
and
3.4.2
3.4.2
the identity (for example, a trading name) and geographical address of the marketer and any other trader on whose behalf the marketer is acting
(Misleading advertising) and 9.1 (Distance selling).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its present form. We told CellPhoneShop.net to avoid giving a misleading impression about their location and to make their geographic address clear to consumers.
