Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both were upheld.
Ad description
A website for rental properties that accepted DSS tenants, www.dsscribs.com, featured two property listings:
1. This listing stated "2 bedroom house, East London, Stratford, Immaculate and Clean, DSS Allowed. Submitted by DSS Landlord ... Lovely 2 bedroom house located in the heart of Stratford, very close to the station and to the new Westfield shopping centre. Excellent transport services available. DSS allowed just £800 per month ... Contact Tel: 070XXXXXXX".
2. The second listing stated "2 bedroom house located in Dollis Hill, North London, 2 Large bedrooms, furnished, modern, DSS Accepted. Submitted by DSS Landlord ... Dollis Hill, North London available from today is this beautiful 2 bedroom house, comes fully furnished in very modern condition. The house has good size double rooms and also has 2 reception rooms. I am a private landlord with over 50 properties across London. If you are interested in other properties please call me. Thanks ... Contact Tel: 070XXXXXXX".
Issue
The complainant, who called the telephone numbers in the listings, challenged whether they were misleading, because:
1. they omitted the call charges for the '070' numbers which were higher than for a mobile phone number; and
2. she did not believe the properties were genuine.
Response
DSSCribs did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by DSSCribs' lack of response and apparent disregard for the code, which was a 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.
1. Upheld
The ASA understood that telephone numbers which started with '070' were numbers which allowed calls to be diverted to mobile phone or landline numbers. We understood that it cost up to 50p per minute to call an '070' number from a BT landline and could cost more to call from a mobile telephone. We considered that because it was more expensive to call an '070' number than a geographic number or a mobile phone number, and that consumers viewing the property listings may have mistakenly believed the '070' was a normal mobile phone number, the listings on DSSCribs' website should have included pricing information for the '070' numbers. Because they did not, we considered that the website listings were misleading.
On this point, the website listings breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
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).
2. Upheld
We understood that the complainant doubted that the properties in the listings were genuine because when she telephoned DSSCribs to enquire about viewing the properties, the representative would not disclose the name of the lettings agency to her and she was told that someone would call her back, but they did not. She was also kept on the phone for over 30 minutes, was on hold for some of that time and was charged for the call at a premium rate. Because we had not seen any evidence to demonstrate that the properties listed were genuine, we concluded that the listings on the website had not been substantiated and were misleading.
On this point, the website listings 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 listings must not appear again on DSSCribs' website. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team and told DSSCribs to ensure that they include call charges for premium rate telephone numbers in their advertising in future.
