Ad description
A website, https://www.cluedupp.com/, for CluedUpp Games, an events business, was seen on 3 June 2023. The ad contained the text “WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY STRATFORD UPON AVON 18TH NOVEMBER 2023 … Embark on a captivating journey through Stratford Upon Avon on Saturday 18th November, 2023 [sic] with Witchcraft & Wizardry: Murder by Magic! … Only 14 tickets remaining”. Above the text “Only 14 tickets remaining” was a partially advanced status bar.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim “Only 14 tickets remaining” was misleading.Response
Uppholdings Ltd t/a CluedUpp Games explained that they had a cap on the number of participants they allowed at each event, and they limited the number of tickets displayed on the website. They said it should have displayed 50 tickets at the launch of the event, but had been set at 20 in error. By 3 June they had sold six tickets, and so it displayed 14 tickets remaining incorrectly. However, at some point after that date the inventory tracker had stopped working, and so the “tickets remaining” number had not been automatically updated in line with sales.They said they had launched a new website in April and had been working through updates and fixes since then. They said that the failure to update the “tickets remaining” number was due to both a process error and human error. They were in the process of amending their inventory tracking issue. In the meantime, they removed the “tickets remaining” figure from the website and replaced it with the claim “limited tickets remaining”. They explained that their customers were at the heart of their business, and they would never have intentionally misled them.Assessment
UpheldThe CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not falsely state that a product, or the terms on which it is offered, would be available only for a very limited time, to deprive consumers of time or opportunity to make an informed choice.We considered that consumers were likely to understand the ad, including the claim “Only 14 tickets remaining”, and a status bar, which suggested that the majority of tickets had been sold, to mean that there had been a high demand for the event, and they should act quickly to buy and secure the last few available tickets.We acknowledged CluedUpp Games’ admission that there had been a mixture of human and system error when displaying the “tickets remaining” total. That meant when the complainant saw the ad there were 44 tickets, out of a total of 50, remaining, and not 14 tickets as displayed. Nevertheless, the ad gave a misleading impression about the number available and in doing so hurried consumers into a decision to purchase. We therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (substantiation), and 3.31 (Availability).Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Uppholdings Ltd t/a CluedUpp Games to ensure that future ads incorporated accurate information and that they did not hurry consumers into a decision by giving the impression that goods would be available for a limited time.
