Ad description
A website for voucher codes and offers, www.vouchercat.co.uk, seen on 1 October 2018, featured a page entitled "Joseph Parr Discount Code" and listed a number of offers and discounts such as "5% Off" for Joseph Parr.
Issue
Joseph Parr (Middlesbrough) Ltd, who said they did not offer the deals in question, challenged whether the discount claims were misleading.
Response
Person(s) unknown t/a www.vouchercat.co.uk did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that there was no registered legal entity behind the website www.vouchercat.co.uk and the registrant of the website had used a domain privacy service to set up the website which concealed their identity. We were concerned by vouchercat.co.uk's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was in 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 respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
We considered that consumers would understand from the headline "Joseph Parr Discount Code" that the discount codes listed on the page could be used to purchase products through Joseph Parr at a discounted price. We also understood from Joseph Parr that they did not offer the discounts listed.
In light of the above, 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. (Misleading advertising) and 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).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told www.vouchercat.co.uk to ensure that they did not imply that discount codes could be used to purchase products from third-party retailers if that was not the case. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
