ASA Adjudication on Landlord Action Ltd
Landlord Action Ltd
Concorde House
Grenville Place
London
NW7 3SA
Date:
31 October 2012
Media:
Internet (on own site)
Sector:
Business
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
A12-206230
Ad
A claim on the website www.landlordaction.co.uk, which promoted services for landlords with problem tenants, stated "Paul Shamplina - Founder. Paul has worked within in [sic] the legal system since 1997 - specialising in landlord/tenant disputes. As a certified bailiff, he has acted on behalf of landlords with bad tenants, and has enormous expertise in the process and in court proceedings".
Issue
The complainant, who worked in the property industry, challenged whether the claim that Paul Shamplina was a certified bailiff was misleading and could be substantiated.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
Response
Landlord Action Ltd (Landlord Action) responded to the ASA by phone. They stated that Paul Shamplina had been certified as a bailiff in the past, and pointed out that the ad did not explicitly claim that he still was. They said they realised nevertheless that the ad might be misleading, but declined to make any changes or provide a written response.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA acknowledged that the ad did not explicitly state that Paul Shamplina was currently a certified bailiff. However, we considered that the claim "As a certified bailiff ...", when used to describe the founder of a company offering debt recovery services, was ambiguous and likely to be misinterpreted by consumers to have that meaning. Because we understood that Paul Shamplina was no longer a certified bailiff, and because we considered that the ad did not make that clear, we concluded that the claim was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
Action
The claim must not appear again in its current form. We told Landlord Action to ensure that their marketing claims were not misleading.
