Ad description
A website for BrainDumps, http://www.braindumps.com/testprep/ISAT.htm, a company selling practice exam questions for the International Student Admissions Test (ISAT), seen on 26 August 2016, included the claims “ISAT Real Exam Questions - Guaranteed. Real ISAT Exam Simulation Environment With Accurate & Updated Questions … Real Exam Questions Taken Pool [sic] of Actual Questions”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claims that the BrainDumps product contained genuine ISAT questions were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Certplex Ltd t/a BrainDumps did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by BrainDumps's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and we told them to do so in future.
We considered consumers would understand from the ad that BrainDump’s product contained a range of questions that had been taken from previous ISAT exams, which they could use to prepare for upcoming ISAT exams. However, we understood from the complainant, who had purchased the product, that the level at which the practice exam questions were set was significantly lower than would be expected for the ISAT. Because we had not seen any evidence that the questions in the BrainDumps Silver Package were genuine ISAT exam questions, we concluded 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 3.7 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 ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Certplex Ltd t/a BrainDumps to remove claims from their advertising which stated or implied that their ISAT Exam products contained genuine ISAT exam questions. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
