Ad description
A regional press ad for Accord Bathrooms & Kitchens, seen in the Ardrossan and Saltscoats Herald on 17 August 2016, stated “All work guaranteed”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim “All work guaranteed” was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Accord Bathrooms & Kitchens did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Accord Bathrooms & Kitchens 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 response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
We considered that consumers were likely to interpret the claim “all work guaranteed” to mean that any work carried out by Accord Bathrooms & Kitchens would be covered under guarantee should a subsequent issue occur as a result of the work Accord Bathrooms & Kitchens had carried out. We understood that the complainant maintained he had a fault occur after work was carried out by Accord Bathrooms & Kitchens, but was unable to obtain a response from the advertiser.
We therefore concluded that in the absence of any evidence to support the claim that all work was guaranteed, the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.53 3.53 Marketing communications must not use the word "guarantee" in a way that could cause confusion about a consumer's rights. 3.54 3.54 Marketing communications must make clear each significant limitation to an advertised guarantee (of the type that has implications for a consumer's rights). Marketers must supply the full terms before the consumer is committed to taking up the guarantee. and 3.55 3.55 Marketers must promptly refund consumers who make valid claims under an advertised money-back guarantee. (Guarantees and after-sales service).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told the advertiser not to state that all of their work was guaranteed if that was not the case. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance Team.
