Ad description
A listing on ebay, for a 2.4G Mini Wireless Keyboard with Trackball Mouse, stated that the item was located in London, United Kingdom.
Issue
The complainant, who saw the ad on 15 July 2011 and believed the return address was in China, challenged whether the ad was misleading.
Response
kingsmart did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by kingsmarts' lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code 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 understood from the product listing that items sold by kingsmart were shipped from Hong Kong using Airmail. We therefore considered that, because the ad indicated that the item was located in London, United Kingdom, it was misleading and concluded that it breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
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) and
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).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
