An agent’s complaint about claims made by a competitor have resulted in the case being informally resolved by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The complaint, by Miller Metcalfe, centred on a leaflet for Harrisons Estate Agents which stated: “Join the fastest growing estate agent in Bolton” and “1st out of 79 agents. Our results speak for themselves. Official Stats from rightmove.co.uk”.
It featured a pie chart showing their market share compared to other estate agents and small text stating “Sales agreed report” and listing a number of postcodes.
Miller Metcalfe, who believed the data referred to in the ad was out of date, challenged whether the claims “Join the fastest growing estate agent in Bolton” and “1st out of 79 agents” were misleading and could be substantiated.
An ASA spokesperson said: “We contacted the advertiser who informed us the claims were based on Rightmove data that is valid for 90 days. They also informed us the 90 days were now up and the claims had been amended in their new advertising.
“Because we understood the problematic claims were no longer appearing, we considered no further action was necessary and closed the case on an informal basis.”
That’s not like the top brass at Miller Metcalfe to spit the dummy out. Honestly, guv…
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This is the trouble with ombudsman and trading standards. They make it sound like this particular business had the problem.
The fact that he is the moral compass for the area is ignored.
The public are normally non the wiser about dodgy practices and claims. (purplebricks and internet only industry in particular are terrible for this.)
They should be fined at least £5k to make them think twice when they lie again and to also print everywhere where the public might have read the now misleading statement.
Yes that means print a leaflet saying they lied and put it in the paper or a tv advert.
Only way to hurt them.
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