Ad description

The website www.halfords.com featured information about their MOT services and included the text "MOTs NOW ONLY £29.95 RRP £54.85".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the £54.85 recommended retail price detailed in the ad was misleading, because they understood this was the maximum allowable charge for an MOT and not an RRP.

Response

Halfords Ltd (Halfords) said that MOT Prices were set by the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) and that the promotional price in the ad was against the VOSA test fee which was the non-promotional price at which it sold MOTS for all of its premises nationwide. They said that the £54.85 test fee was a genuine selling price and was generally available nationwide at that price both in 290 Halfords premises and at a range of its competitors. They provided VOSA test fee information along with details of its own sales of MOTs at the £54.85 price and examples of 13 further garages from across the UK (including main dealers, multi-site independent dealers and three of the other largest fast-fit centres) which were using the £54.85 as the reference price, which they believed was the price at which those competitors had previously sold MOTs.

They also provided details of a main brand dealership that was offering a price of £45 at 585 of its premises, which they believed was a substantially similar price. They therefore believed its reference price was a price at which MOTs were generally available.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA considered that consumers would understand from the claim "MOTs NOW ONLY £29.95 RRP £54.85" that £54.85 was the price at which it was recommended that MOTs were sold and that Halfords sold their own MOTs at a considerably lower price. We therefore considered that consumers would understand from the ad that the normal price for an MOT was £54.85 and would therefore be likely to choose Halfords as opposed to checking the MOT price of garages elsewhere. We understood that although VOSA, a government agency, set the £54.85 price as the maximum charge for MOTs (for cars), that £54.85 price was not the amount recommended for an MOT and that VOSA made no recommendations about the price at which MOTs should be sold. We therefore considered that the £54.85 price was incorrectly referred to as an RRP.

We noted Halfords comments that the £54.85 price was the price at which MOTs had been sold at their 290 garages, but noted evidence was not supplied to demonstrate that this was the case. We noted further examples (including main dealers and independent garages) demonstrated that this was also the price at which many competitor garages also offered their MOTs. We understood Halfords believed that other garages which also referenced discounts off the £54.85 price (some of which also referred to that price as an RRP) demonstrated that those garages had previously sold at the top VOSA price, but noted no evidence was provided to demonstrate that this was the case. We considered the example of a competitor garage with 585 premises offering MOTs at £45.00 was not a substantially similar price and that it did not support the argument that the £54.85 price was the price at which MOTs were generally available.

Although we understood many garages decided to sell at the top VOSA price, we considered that this did not itself demonstrate that this price was an RRP or that this was the price at which MOTs were generally available.

We considered that it was inaccurate and misleading to refer to the VOSA price as an RRP and therefore 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.    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.
 (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),  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) and  3.40 3.40 Price comparisons must not mislead by falsely claiming a price advantage. Comparisons with a recommended retail prices (RRPs) are likely to mislead if the RRP differs significantly from the price at which the product or service is generally sold.  (Price comparisons).

Action

The ad should not appear again in its current form. We told Halfords to ensure that when using RRPs for MOTs they held documentary evidence to show it was a genuine RRP and that the quoted RRP did not differ significantly from the price at which the service was generally sold.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.17     3.3     3.40     3.7    


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