Ad description
A website for Logo Design Pros www.logodesignpros.co.uk, seen on 30 July 2017, included on the home page “100% Money Back Guarantee”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that a 100% refund was not always available, has challenged whether the claim “100% Money Back Guarantee” was misleading.
Response
Logo Design Pros did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Logo Design Pro’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, and ruled that they had breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
We considered that consumers would interpret the claim “100% Money Back Guarantee” to mean that if they were not happy with the work undertaken by Logo Design Pros they would receive a full refund. As Logo Design Pros provided no evidence to clarify or explain when the “100% Money Back Guarantee” was available and the complainant had not received a refund, we 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),
3.54
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 Logo Design Pros to ensure in the future that their advertising made clear the nature of their money-back guarantee. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
