Ad description
A marketing email for the price comparison website Uswitch, sent on 25 February 2025, featured an offer for a gas supplier. Text stated, “For a limited time only, you could save £172 and earn £20 cashback by switching to our new, market-leading exclusive deal with British Gas”. Text below stated, “British Gas Fixed Tariff v32”, and boxes under the tariff information included text which stated “Limited-time exclusive” and “£20 cashback”. Smaller text at the bottom of the email, which provided further detail of the headline claims, stated “Exclusive plans are available through Uswitch, Confused.com and direct via British Gas for new and existing customers”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood the same tariff was available directly from the supplier, challenged whether the claim that the deal was “exclusive” was misleading.
Response
Uswitch Ltd t/a Uswitch said that the British Gas fixed tariff v32 was only available via comparison services run by Uswitch Ltd (Uswitch and Confused.com), as well as directly through British Gas. They said they had negotiated the terms of the tariff with British Gas on the basis that it would not be available on other price comparison websites. They highlighted that consumers who had purchased the tariff through the Uswitch website were also entitled to a £20 cashback deal. That cashback offer was not available either through Confused.com, or directly from British Gas.
Uswitch believed that the cashback offer meant that the deal seen on their website was not the same deal available directly from the supplier or elsewhere, and that it therefore was an “exclusive” offer.
Uswitch said they included a disclaimer in the ad to make consumers aware that the tariff, without the cashback offer, was also available directly from British Gas. They said the disclaimer section of the email had included text which stated, “Exclusive plans are available through Uswitch, Confused.com and direct via British Gas for new and existing customers”. They said that information had also been made clear on their website.
Assessment
Not upheldThe ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim “Limited-time exclusive” to mean that the advertised offer was available for a limited amount of time, and the deal was only available by switching their energy supply to British Gas, and by using Uswitch to do so.
While it was possible to interpret the claim “exclusive deal” as referring to the terms of the tariff for energy supply only, we noted the text that preceded the reference to the exclusive deal explicitly referred to the £20 cashback, and we considered that in that context, consumers would understand that the “exclusive” aspect of the deal related to the offer of both the claimed saving based on the available tariff and the cashback, rather than just the tariff itself, which was available elsewhere.
We understood that the British Gas fixed tariff v32 offer had been available via Uswitch and Confused.com, both of which were price comparison websites run by Uswitch Ltd. We understood that consumers were able to purchase the tariff at the same rate directly from British Gas. However, we understood that of the three sites on which the tariff had been available, the £20 cashback offer was only available through the Uswitch website.
For those reasons, we concluded that the claim that the deal was “exclusive” was not misleading.
We investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 3.1 (Misleading advertising), but did not find it not in breach.
Action
No further action required.
