Ad description

An ad on a motor sales website, for KP Cars, listed the price of a car as "£899". The title description stated "Smart Roadster 80 [RHD] 2dr Auto 0.7 ACTUAL PRICE £3899 NOT £899!!!".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the use of a significantly lower listing price than the actual product price was misleading.

Response

KP Cars did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by KP Cars' 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 considered that consumers would understand from the listed price that the vehicle was available for sale at £899 and that this was contradicted by body copy text, which stated "ACTUAL PRICE £3899 NOT £899".

The price quoted was material information that consumers needed in order to help them make an informed decision. It must not, therefore, be presented in an unclear or ambiguous manner and should accurately reflect the price of the advertised product. Because this was not the case, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.    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.
 and  3.4.3 3.4.3 the price of the advertised product, including taxes, or, if the nature of the product is such that the price cannot be calculated in advance, the manner in which the price is calculated  (Misleading advertising) and  3.17 3.17 Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication.  (Prices).

Action

We told KP Cars to ensure that quoted prices accurately reflected the actual cost of the advertised vehicle to avoid misleading consumers about material information in relation to the product.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

1.7     3.1     3.17     3.3     3.4.3    


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