Ad description
An ad on eBay's product listing page, seen in July 2016, stated "7" A33 Quad Core Google Android 4.4 Kids Tablet PC 8GB ... Colour: Select ... £15.99 Buy it now ...". The tablet was pictured in various colours and the tablet specifications were listed in the "description" section of the page.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "£15.99" was misleading and could be substantiated, because it was not possible to buy the product at that price.
Response
zeusmall did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by zeusmall's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of the 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 respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
We considered that consumers would expect to be able to buy the tablet that was shown and described in the listing at the advertised "Buy it now" price of £15.99. We understood that the tablet colour had to be selected before purchase and none of the tablet colours that appeared in the drop down list were available at the advertised price of £15.99. A tablet stand was also included in the list of colours, which, when selected, was shown to be available for £15.99.
We saw no evidence to show that it was possible to buy the advertised tablet for the claimed £15.99, and therefore concluded that the claim not been substantiated and was therefore 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), 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) and 3.17 3.17 Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication. (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told zeusmall not to claim that the tablet was available at the advertised price of £15.99 unless they held evidence to substantiate those claims. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
