Ad description
An ad on the website www.interact-uk.org.uk, for a business contact directory, seen on 7 April 2016 stated, “Quickly find company customer service and helpline numbers. Businesses often put their contact number in difficult to locate places on their website. We save you the time of searching through long FAQ lists by providing you with the phone number, customer service hours, phone menu options and some tips for contacting each company”. The ad then listed links to various companies under headings such as “Banks … Government … Insurance … Travel … TV, Mobile & Broadband”. Towards the bottom of the web page, the ad stated “We use the affordable 0843 number range which costs only 7p per minute plus your networks [sic] access charge. We are in no way associated or affiliated to any of the companies listed on our website”. When a particular company or organisation was clicked through, the ad displayed a phone number and small print underneath stated “Calls to our 0843 numbers cost 7p/minute plus your phone company’s access charge”.
Issue
Legal Beagles challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that the numbers for each company or organisation were the official customer service numbers and would be charged accordingly.
Response
Interact-uk.org.uk (Interact) did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by interact-uk.org.uk’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 response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
We considered that consumers would understand from the claims “Quickly find company customer service and helpline numbers” and “We save you the time of searching through long FAQ lists by providing you with the phone number, customer service hours, phone menu options…” to mean that the numbers displayed were the official contact numbers for each business or organisation and that they would be charged at each organisation’s own usual rate for that call. We noted that many of the official numbers for each business or organisation were charged at the national rate, or were free. Therefore, call charges could be significantly lower for using official contact numbers, rather than those provided by Interact. However, the ad omitted to state that material information. Furthermore, we considered that the wording “We use the affordable 0843 number range which costs only 7p per minute plus your networks [sic] access charge. We are in no way associated or affiliated to any of the companies listed on our website”, displayed further down the ad, had it been seen by consumers, and similar wording seen when a particular business or organisation was selected, was not sufficient to counteract the impression that Interact’s numbers were the official ones and consumers would be charged accordingly. We therefore considered that the text contradicted rather than clarified the overall impression of the ad.
Because the ad implied that the phone numbers provided by Interact were the official contact numbers, which was not the case, and that consumers would be charged significantly more if they used Interact’s numbers compared to a business or organisation's own contacts, we concluded it 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.
and
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) and
3.9
3.9
Marketing communications must state significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not contradict the claims that they qualify.
(Qualification).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told interact-uk.org.uk to make clear that the phone numbers they provided were not official customer service numbers and, where call charges differed from official contact numbers, that this was clearly communicated. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance Team.
