Background
This Ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on mid-contract price rises, identified for investigation following complaints received. See also related rulings published on 9 October 2024.
Ad description
A webpage on the BT website www.bt.com, seen in May 2024, featured the headline “Get Ultrafast Full Fibre 100 for only £29.99 a month”. Smaller text under the main headline stated, “Prices rise each year on 31 March by £3. 24 month [sic] contract.” Six full-fibre broadband packages were listed under the headline. Text for each of the packages stated the download speed, cost and length of the contract. Smaller text directly under the individual prices stated, “Increases 31 March 2025”.
At the bottom of the page, under the subheading “The legal stuff”, text stated, “On 31 March each year the monthly price shown for broadband plans will increase by £3 […] Out of bundle charges will increase by 5%. All prices shown are in contract [sic] prices. Please note the cost of other services you take from us may increase or decrease while you are a BT customer. See bt.com/prices-explained for details”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the presentation of the mid-contract price increases was misleading.
Response
British Telecommunications plc t/a BT believed that the qualification “Prices rise each year on 31 March by £3. 24 month [sic] contract” met the ASA guidelines, because it made clear when the price would increase, by how much it would increase, and immediately followed it with the monthly price and upfront cost information.
Regarding the claims seen for the six full-fibre broadband packages, BT said they had stated when the prices would increase, but accepted that the legal information had been included in a dropdown box at the bottom of the page, instead of being included directly within the six listed package details. They intended to amend the ads so that the full statement was included below the pricing panels for each broadband package, as per ASA guidance.
Assessment
Upheld
CAP Guidance stated that the presence of and, if applicable, the nature of mid-contract price increases, were material information that consumers needed in order to make an informed transactional decision. Consequently, marketers were required to ensure that advertising for services that included mid-contract price increases included such information and that it was presented clearly and prominently. The guidance also stated that asterisks or links, which linked to information more than one ‘step’ below the price claim, were unlikely to give adequate weight to the significance of material information. The ASA assessed the ad in question against the Code.
The ad included a headline claim that stated, “Get Ultrafast Full Fibre 100 for only £29.99 a month”. Smaller text underneath stated, “Prices rise each year on 31 March by £3. 24 month [sic] contract”. The ad then described different broadband packages alongside the corresponding price per month of each package. Those prices were immediately followed by statements which stated that prices would increase on 31 March 2025. While we felt that consumers would understand from each individual package’s information that the monthly price would be fixed until that date, we noted that the detailed price rise information was presented at the top of the screen in considerably smaller text than the headline claim, and also it was not directly beneath the headline claim. We considered that the placement and size of the price rise information was likely to be overlooked by consumers, who would want to scroll down the page to engage with the details of the individual broadband packages on offer. We therefore did not consider that it would be clear to them how, or by what means, the monthly charge would be affected after that date.
We understood that all of the advertised broadband packages were subject to mid-contract price increases, and that on 31 March each year the monthly price would increase by £3. We considered that information was material to a consumer’s decision to purchase or engage further with each of the packages. While we acknowledged that smaller text at the top of the page mentioned the £3 price rise, and that text stated that the monthly price would increase on 31 March, the listings of the broadband packages did not provide information explaining the nature of the increase. We considered this to be material information which should have been included in the details of each offer.
We then considered the qualification located at the bottom of the webpage under the heading “The legal stuff”. The qualification explained that the monthly cost of each package would increase by £3 on 31 March each year. However, because that material information was not included within the listings for each broadband package, we considered that it had not been prominently or clearly displayed. Furthermore, we considered that if consumers did not scroll down past the information on the broadband packages, the information included in the qualification would likely have been overlooked because of its placement at the bottom of the page.
Because the presentation of the mid-contract price increases was not presented clearly, we concluded the ad was likely to mislead.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.10 (Qualification), and 3.17 and 3.18 (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told British Telecommunications plc t/a BT to ensure that they made sufficiently clear that their broadband contracts would be subject to mid-contract price increases, and that information about the nature of such price increases was presented prominently.
