A complaint about Purplebricks and its description of the standard fee it charges has been informally resolved by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The ASA said it received a complaint about the hybrid agent’s website, which made reference to “our standard fee £849”.
The complainant challenged whether the claim could be substantiated
Next to the text was an icon which, when hovered over, revealed the following text: “This is our standard fee for everywhere outside of London and surrounding areas, where we charge £1,199 inc VAT. Around 40% of our customers pay us a fixed fee of £300 to cover ALL viewings.”
Purplebricks has since agreed to amend its website.
Meanwhile, the ASA has confirmed that a separate complaint from aspirant trade body CIELA about Purplebricks, lodged at the end of January, has been passed to its compliance team.
The ASA said: “We did receive the mentioned complaint from CIELA as a separate case. We concluded the ad breached our previous ruling, so the case has moved to our compliance team, who are now working directly with Purplebricks on the issue.”
Also informally resolved this week were complaints against “rental community” OpenRent, which claims to be the UK’s biggest letting agent, and Peterborough-based letting agent HSB Homes.
In OpenRent’s case, the ASA received two complaints about a video featured on its website, which included the claim: “With OpenRent you have access to sites such as Rightmove, Zoopla, Gumtree and more, so your advert will be seen by literally millions of potential tenants.”
It also claimed that landlords made an average saving of £3,118 when a property is leased through its business.
After an approach from the ASA, OpenRent agreed to remove the first claim.
OpenRent also offered an assurance that for the second claim it would either make changes in accordance with the ASA’s recommendations or it would not make any savings claims in the future.
Meanwhile, the ASA received a complaint about a property listing placed on Rightmove by HSB Homes which did not clearly list the fees.
The ASA said: “The advertiser assured us that the listing has since been removed. We also received assurance that any future listing will clearly state administration fees.”
Daily Purplebricks article quota check.
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PurpleBricks daily breaking rules looking to mislead the public.
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‘Smile please’ one of those awful agents who go board knocking on elderly ladies houses with direct aggressive sales tactics and you have the audacity to complain about Purplebricks.
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Oh Dom.
Bless. You have no idea.
Have your imaginary properties made it onto your books yet?
I hope you got your tax return in on time and declared all earned income on your reurbishments and rental income.
Going online and declaring what you have and what you do leaves you open for checks by the necessary departments.
Sleep well tonight.
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Such a classy guy.
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That’s quite an accusation there. Hope you can back it up……..or have libel insurance.
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Only two days ago He openly stated he board knocks.
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And?
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Door knocking is abhorrent.
Taking little old ladies money up front and then smiling as you drive away, content that you don’t care whether she sells or not is just as abhorrent.
Tying her into a conveyancer into a factory somewhere, who cannot truly help her when she needs to sit in front of somebody when she is stressed out, is also equally abhorrent.
Especially when you know you are overcharging her so you can have a cut!!!
Genuine estate agency is about looking after somebody, not just earning a commission.
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So do LPE’s …. defend that one then Dom?
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Yesterday my partner (and LPE) rang seven local agents in her area asking for costs. Not one would give their fees. They waffled, made excuses or just ignored the question. No honsty, transparency and no straight answer. It was embarrassing to listen to. PB are far clearer with their fees than the high street….fact.
(btw, my fees are on our website and in our window..1.25%+ vat. We are the only agent in our town other than PB who do display their fees)
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But you do know it should be 1.5% in your window and on your website don’t you?
Wouldn’t want you to get picked up by your local LPE for a complaint to the ASA.
😉
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Mr Lister .Its Valentine’s Day you have to support your partner . I guess you are only telling half the story; Did any off the agents offer to come and inspect your property to discuss value ,marketing and fees .You are an agent you would have used that phone call to have secured an appointment and more importantly to demonstrate you are the right person for the job
Or did your partner back off when they suggested that
Most agents fees are negotiable mainly dependent on attitude of vendor
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What percentage of your instructions are quoted the fee that is on your website. Be honest.
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Morning Dom!!
How are you ………are you going to answer my question today??????
Or are you going to ignore it again???
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I answered it yesterday David. Have a good day sir.
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Now Dom don’t you think you can make that comment and walk gracefully out the room…….You know that answer you offered yesterday was in support of PB.
I even offered you some help with some suggestions on their bad practices…
A) I believe their Adverts are misleading to the consumer as they do not make it clear that their business model means that they are paid for advertising property, not selling or renting.B) They don’t have confidence in their Sales forces ability to sell/rent property otherwise they would refund their customers if they did not sell/rent their property.C) They claim that “your” dedicated local property expert is available 24hrs a day – if this was the case they would be in breach of working hours regulations.
D) They continue to ignore ASA rulings giving all property professionals a bad name including the huge volume of Ethical agents who donate time and money to good causes every year
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Dom are you sure you don’t work as an Online-only estate agent?
You seem to pick and choose what things to respond to…….
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134
As I used to say to my 5 year old when she got upset with something her sister said;
‘Why get bothered? You can just ignore it!’
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is there an email so I can get in touch with you agentv, I’m sure you may of mentioned it 453 times
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jack@thunderbirdsarego.co.uk
Look forward to hearing from you…..always happy to talk and debate!
BSOS23PC
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Cue yet another days worth of misinformed, bias drivel from all the usual suspects who have no real insight or knowledge as to how PB work. Off you go guys…
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Hmmmmm, I think I have a little more insight than most, living and working in the same town as their head office.
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No you don’t. I’m a high street agent who lives with an LPE. I know more than any of you!
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Now this is interesting!!!
Perhaps you could offer a little insight into the difficulties of this.
A few questions if you may…
1) Is it a house-mate / partner/ spouse etc that s the LPE?
2) Have you declared the potential conflict of interest to your current employer?
3) How difficult was it for the LPE to register themselves with HMRC etc as is a requirement?
4) whats ther average outgoings?
5) How much is the kick back the conveyancers give PB?
This will be great you have all the answers……
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1) Partner
2) She’s very local and runs five postcodes within a few miles of home, I run a branch 30 miles away so non applicable.
3) Very straightforward.
4) Yearly AML, insurance, car, petrol, stationary etc! No monthly fees, clawbacks etc.
5) I’m sure it’s very similar to most other agents kick backs. Sorry, not being evasive, I just don’t know the exact figure (so alright, I don’t know everything!)
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Thanks for the response, and the details – very admirable….(And more than you get from some other posters).
I would watch-out on the conflict of interest point – it’s better to let the employer make that decision that they look for a reason to cut costs and find that a convenient route.
May I ask why she didn’t want to work for a Full-Service agent?
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She does!…and she did. Connells manager for 7 years.
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Mr Lister, please can you help me with this question as you are so knowledgeable about how PB operate, it is quite transparent:
Is your LPE partner VAT registered?
I ask because PB does not add inc VAT(a requirement if registered).
Note sword mark on the fee quote on top of PB website scroll to the bottom of their page for this explanation:
† Our viewings service is an optional £300, where we’ll take care of every single viewing for you, with a dedicated professional. We want to give you the choice of paying a transparent, fair & fixed amount for viewings (many of our customers prefer to do it themselves) rather than hide it within an overall cost. Our fee is a fixed cost to you, payable regardless of sale, and we will market your property for as long as it takes to sell without ever asking for more money.
What about, that is unless you decide not to use our conveyancers whereby we shall bill you £360 inc VAT immediately?
Not very transparent is it?
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Yes it is….as you’ve just shown.
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‘Is your LPE partner VAT registered?’
Care to answer?
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MrLister…….I would say that I can comment…..I am a customer of PB and have sold a property utilising their advertising services.
Unless you feel that is not suitable experience?
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David, that leaves you with a lot more insight than most of the contributors on here…so yes, you can comment!
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Mr Lister,
I always fail to understand why a local independent estate agent doesn’t totally believe that the service they provide gives the Vendor a far better experience from start to finish, a far higher level of service and a better ‘walk away value’ (sold price less fee including VAT).
If you don’t believe this why don’t you just go and work for your favourite Call Centre Lister…..help build your partner’s territory?
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I’ve never said I don’t believe we offer a better service. Overall, I do. I just don’t get the vitriol against one competitor.
PB offer a different service that many customers love. What we miss out on is the 24/7 service. My partner can still be arranging viewings, negotiating offers and doing pre-calls at 9pm. Viewings can be made at 10pm on Saturday evening for a Sunday morning. We can’t do that and nor can many other high street agents. A huge proportion of buyers search for their new home on the internet between 7pm and 11pm…….when the high street is closed!
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We can arrange viewings at any time…..including outside the normal office hours. We have been able to do it for years using systems we have developed.
But you can achieve the same very easily with a simple VOIP telephone system….close the office, transfer the calls to your mobile and Bob’s your uncle!
You can also keep in touch with your vendors and buyers any time of day or night via WhatsApp.
I am sure lots of other Full Service Agents do it nowadays!
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By the way, if you and your partner ever want to set up your own independent Full Service Agency utilising revolutionary new software aimed at ‘exceptional service’ just let me know.
I am sure you have my email address 😉 and I can help!
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https://youtu.be/Pk1N0ep1nRc
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To be frank i believe the anger is directed at the claim they are an “Estate Agent” i.e. they get paid to sell houses. The fact that they get paid even when they fail to sell houses means they are actually an “advertising company” such as newspaper advert/portal/gumtree advert – which also happens to have the skills in-house to do the other jobs, some of which attract an additional fee.
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They are estate agents. There is virtually nothing my partner doesn’t know about selling houses. She’s been doing it for ten years and knows the business inside out. She very much regards herself as an estate agent, and rightly so. I am an agent who always tries to offer my clients the best service that I possible can. No exception. I see my girlfriend and her collegues doing excatly the same. I can’t say different, I see it first hand! She strives every day to do the best for her clients. She’s a very good agent.
The idea of paying to advertise your product or service isn’t a new concept….it’s just that we’re not used to it in our industry. It’s always been no sale, no fee. So when someone comes along and does it differently it’s bound to raise a lot of eyebrows and come in for criticism from others in the industry. It’s just all a bit over the top and many comments on here are way off the mark.
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Mr Lister,
Does your partner take the very best photographs she can to represent the property, carry out as many viewings as possible, encourage as many offers as she can to try and get the very best sale price for her vendors, negotiate hard with all potential buyers making offers and then follow through with an after sale service to help everything through to completion.
Does she do all that for £250 to £300?
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You might have missed this but it would be helpful to have your answer please:
Mr Lister. In the last six months how many instructions have you taken on and what proportion of those instructions to your high street branch have exchanged contracts? And same question relating to your LPE partner?
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Me: 72% of listings exchanged in 2017
My partner: Of the 21 houses she listed in November, December & January she has 13 under offer, 2 exchanged, 6 still up for sale (4 of those from Jan listings). That’s the best you’ll get from me!
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But will she now follow the 13 ‘under offer’ through to completion?
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Informally resolved, confirming that the advert was misleading due to the requirement to make corrections.
So those who signed up under false pretence are entitled to a refund / compensation.
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Nobody signs with PB without knowing exactly what they’re doing. It’s crystal clear in their payment process and all LPE’s explain it fully at valuation. But please feelk free to ignore this answer. That’s the idea of debate on here…only hear and see what you want to and ingnore the facts.
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Mr Lister. In the last six months how many instructions have you taken on and what proportion of those instructions to your high street branch have exchanged contracts? And same question relating to your LPE partner?
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‘Nobody signs with PB without knowing exactly what they are doing’
So why then are there so many one star trust pilot reviews highlighted on Twitter …..saying exactly that this doesn’t happen?
And why don’ t the adverts on TV make it perfectly clear in the voiceover that you don’t pay commission but you do pay a fixed fee whether you sell your property or not?
Why not be totally open and transparent about it all from the off?
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AgentV,
And why don’t traditional agents publish how they calculate their commission and include VAT whenever they discuss how much they charge?
Why don’t they publish how long you are being tied into the agreement?
Why do they have price fixing cartels?
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Cyberduck,
Your son is at medical school studying to be a doctor. Why does he want to enter a profession where people murder their patients (Harold Shipman) or carry out unnecessary life changing private operations for their own gain (Ian Patterson)?
See what I did there?
There are good and bad, caring or uncaring, dedicated or self serving in every profession!!!
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Agentv,
So back to your point about PurpleBricks not having a voiceover.
The answer is the same as why:
1. traditional agents don’t publish how they calculate their commission and include VAT whenever they discuss how much they charge.
2. why they don’t they publish how long you are being tied into the agreement?
You are all being as transparent as you need to be.
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Cyberduck, you are the only one that believes what you are saying.
I am beginning to worry you are becoming a little ‘trauma’ like obsessed.
I suggest to placate your need, you find a few agents you don’t like (don’t suppose you will have to go far), that are doing what you are stating….and then continuously write letters to them about changing their ways.
You might get more gratification from that!
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Just answering your question for you. PurpleBricks don’t provide a voiceover because they don’t need to just like you don’t publish your rates because it would negatively affect your business if the public could see that other agents charge less.
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/newsflash-industry-regulator-warns-online-agents-against-making-unsubstantiated-claims-in-advertising/
“I wouldn’t publish it on the website because my competitors would then publish on their websites ‘we charge £300 less than quoted on x’s website’.”
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And we all know PB only publish their charges to try and get people to contact them (a transactional decision), and they don’t add in the viewings fees or additional solicitors fees..to try and make them look cheaper to get more people to contact them, and they don’t make it obvious they charge you whether they sell the property or not on TV adverts or anywhere else……to try and get more people to contact them.
It is all cynical marketing by a company whose priority in life is not the very best client experience, service or ‘walk away result’. If it was their priority they would not do all of these things.
It is about making as much money for themselves and their shareholders as possible.
If someone thinks ‘I am not going to contact agentV because he doesn’t advertise his fees on his site’ .. then so be it….but I haven’t fooled them into making a transactional decision to contact me have I?
If people ring me and ask I tell anyone our fees.
I am sick and tired of saying this to you time and time again Cyberduck.
Just carry on believing whatever you want to.
BSOS23PC
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>If people ring me and ask I tell anyone our fees.
By that time they’ve already made the transactional decision in the absence of material information.
So in my opinion it is exactly the same – a lack of transparency with the intention of getting the potential customer to make contact.
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Yeah …whatever Cyberduck…just twist it the way you always want to believe…listen just go to bed tonight look in the mirror…and say to yourself;
‘I really caught that guy out today with what I said……him not printing anything on his website is exactly the same as anybody else printing deceiving information on their websites…..it’s the same and he knows it’
You wake up tomorrow morning satisfied….. I’ll wake up in the morning as still one of the good guys, doing my very best for every client, running a tiny local business to support my family.
We can both go our own ways, both believing what we really want to, and be happy….how about that?
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I can’t speak for others but the reason we do not publish fees is we want to advise and educate the seller on what our fee pays for. It is not a ‘Like or Like’ service compared to other agents.
Please do show any evidence you have of price fixing cartels. This is illegal and i do not know of a single cartel, in fact most agents solely competition fee and look to under cut each other.
Also where do you want all this information displayed? – Rightmove does not really allow it, agents websites are almost a secondary visit not a primary. A lot of the papers discourage it. And 99.9% do not do TV advertising.
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They do TROLL and its in plain view before the customer signs the agency agreement.
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>its in plain view before the customer signs the agency agreement
As are all the factors being discussed in regard to lack of transparency with PurpleBricks. Although in PurpleBricks’ case you are less likely to miss the information because you are making choices as you go through the signing up process and not just signing a contract.
This lady having to pay £4000 to an Estate Agent who couldn’t sell her house and clearly didn’t appreciate that all she needed to do was give notice to terminate the agreement with her Estate Agent before selling to her son http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/elderly-woman-charged-agents-commission-after-property-failed-to-sell-allegation/ and save herself £4000.
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”Nobody signs with PB without knowing exactly what they’re doing.”
You’re wrong about that.
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Nice,
Haven’t been in ‘this place’ for a long time and I nip in for a swift half of news and there’s some new regulars, some not dis similar to others that have frequented the place before.
PeeBee and others will remember that lad who made out he led a prosperous and full life but was here all the time gobbing off a small number of sound bites on a single issue, got a couple of new regulars slipping perfectly into that role, we have a new hybrid contributor, part full service EA and part defender of his birds noble occupation (we can only assume who wears the trousers in that house) and a few other shouty types that aren’t at all keen on anyone’s opinion but their own and in full foam fleck covered fashion rattle on like millennial snowflake oddities from dawn onwards resolutely refusing to actually enter debate.
Nice to see some of the faces have changed but the old place is really still the same.
Oh, and in amongst all this a billion pound business got a ticking off for another time for something I’m struggling to contain my indifference over.
Jonnie
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Great to have you back Jonnie. We need your unique take on the life of PIE!
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We share the trousers…they’re just a bit baggier on her!
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I see that EYE have hit on something important in their article by demonstrating the savings to be made by using PurpleBricks with the image accompanying the article.
A saving of £21,351. Not something to be sniffed at. Don’t forget to subtract £300 if you want them to carry out viewings.
I was looking at some sample data yesterday relating to the distribution of property prices.
Nationally, about 25% of properties are listed at above £400,000. You can see this is where we are talking serious commisery. For a £400K property a traditional agent’s commission is about £4800. Even working on the London price of £1200 from PurpleBricks this is a 4 to 1 ratio. Outside of London, more like a 6 to 1 ratio. Slightly less if you pay PurpleBricks to carry out viewings.
25% is a huge portion of the market, way above the current market share of PurpleBricks which is about 4% of new listings.
If you go down to say a ratio of 3:1 in terms of fees then you are looking at properties above £250K which is about 50% of all properties listed.
This is basing everything on PurpleBricks having a similar listing to conversion rate to traditional agents as claimed by Jefferies. The figures Jefferies provided of course need to be independently verified and you need to note that the figures don’t include completed sales that haven’t yet been recorded at the Land Registry and properties that are still on the market or temporarily off the market which of course some will go on to complete.
At the moment the wrong type of customer is being drawn to PurpleBricks. When consumers have access to all the data including Estate Agent commissions and independent companies like Which? analyse it there should be a shift in the demographic of those using online agents towards the higher value properties.
Of course if this happened traditional agents would have a smaller market share of the higher value properties and would have to increase their fees which would of course make online more attractive to even lower priced properties.
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All of a sudden you have dragged the £300 for viewings out of obscurity into the light like Luke Skywalker unsheathes a lightsaber.
You can drive from Penzance to John O’Groats and back again at 35mpg at todays fuel prices (1654 miles) for £308.00. Most estate agents I know and worked for accompany their viewings as part of their no sale no fee service.
£300 for viewings? Estate agents don’t collect houses for sale they sell them and surely viewing a house is fairly essential to making a sale, so one could expect this service features highly on your KPIs. Either you expect there to be a whole heap of short trips and drive a V8 muscle car or in order to keep a loss leading (misleading) price down for advertorial purposes you do have an agenda.
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Oh and if you are having problems keeping the lower end of the demographic happy, good luck with the other end! I admire your optimism, but I dont think you can expect to pick up their business on the basis that you are cheap.
.
“There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money; that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot; it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
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Rumpole4,
I think as more information is made available it will become clear that traditional agents don’t add much to warrant the higher fees.
We’ve already seen that PurpleBricks’ completion rate is similar to traditional Agents and this is on data provided by and presented by people who support traditional agents.
Given that PurpleBricks are a budget operation and are allegedly a passive intermediary who just list a property on Rightmove, how is it possible for about half of traditional agents to produce worse listing to completion statistics?
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Cyberduck46,
A fee for successfully selling is warranted : taking money from those who don’t sell is not.
And you have just proved that point.
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>A fee for successfully selling is warranted : taking money from those who don’t sell is not.
I have no qualms in agents taking a fee for selling, the issue is that most agents take a percentage of the properties value which is completely at odds with the amount of work carried out. Why do you charge somebody with a £500K property twice as much as somebody with a £250K property? Surely you agree that is unwarrented?
I have no qualms with an agent charging a single fee whether the homeowner sells or not is acceptable as far as I’m concerned as long as this is made clear which in the case of PurpleBricks is (and I’ve sold through them so I know).
Anyway, that’s my opinion and once I’ve replied below won’t be coming back to read any further comments.
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cyberduck46
I will understand if you don’t come back and read the comments as I can feel your faith in your own pointless reasoning draining out of you.
You have a problem with a full service agent charging more for successfully selling a property at £500k as opposed to successfully selling a property at £250k.
BUT
You don’t have a problem with PB charging every vendor for not selling…. on the basis that PB are charging them less to not sell than a full service agent would have charged them for actually selling the property.
You give me the awful impression that the lights are on, but nobody’s home.
P.s Its ok, we all know you are reading this.
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Cyberduck,
If your favourite Call Centre Lister has a completed sale rate of 50% they only do half the work on 50% of the properties they list (assuming half the work is post sale, often it is more).
So for two fees of say £1,500 (including viewings and the greater cost of solicitors fees….or the extra people have to pay to have the choice of using their own) which equals £3,000 they charge per completed sale.
Most agents around me achieve one completed sale per £2,000…..for Full Service Agency.
BSOS23PC
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You are being a TROLL again today I see. More nonsense……
TODAYS ARTICLE is about misleading advertising by PB being upheld, agreed by PB they did wrong and wouldn’t do it again. Heard that before!
For the record, seeing as you are so concerned at championing the public to use PB. You should spend as much time getting PB to announce their true sold numbers for independent analysis, as you do knocking any twist and turn to suit your personal agenda of how bad estate agents are, for the public are the ones that are being duped if it turns out they don’t sell any properties, for they haven’t produced evidence that they do. Just sale agreed. Is it 50/50, 10/90, can’t be better than 88/12. Maybe as you think they are so good, you have the answer.
Where PB can be congratulated on is topping the league table for the highest number complaints, having them informally resolved, having accepted they were misleading and then going and doing it again. Sounds like just the type of reputable company the public want to do business with? They are edging ever further to a banning order.
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For any people or firms who believe that portal juggling is ‘ok’, that any company of whatever business model misleading the public is somehow ‘fine‘ because ‘other businesses are doing it too’, would do well to read the following guidelines on what is regarded as fraud by the CPS.
The Offences
Section 1 creates a general offence of fraud and introduces three ways of committing it set out in Sections 2, 3 and 4.
Fraud by false representation (Section 2);
Fraud by failure to disclose information when there is a legal duty to do so (Section 3); and
Fraud by abuse of position (Section 4).
In each case:
the defendant’s conduct must be dishonest;
his/her intention must be to make a gain; or cause a loss or the risk of a loss to another.
No gain or loss needs actually to have been made.
The maximum sentence is 10 years’ imprisonment.
Fraud by false representation (Section 2)
The defendant:
made a false representation
dishonestly
knowing that the representation was or might be untrue or misleading
with intent to make a gain for himself or another, to cause loss to another or to expose another to risk of loss.
The offence is entirely focused on the conduct of the defendant.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/fraud-act-2006#a07
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>his/her intention must be to make a gain
Very difficult to determine somebodies intentions. Easy for non-objective people to form opinions as I’ve witnessed myself but difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt.
Chris, are you now conceding that portaljuggling must be deliberate?
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Some portal juggling is very clearly deliberate. Some is a genuine user error. Some is a fault of software.
As regards fraud, it is the job for the CPS to decide if a case has a chance of succeeding and a jury to convict. It is the responsibility of the police, regulators, employees, fellow directors of a company and/ or law-abiding citizens to raise legitimate concerns/ whistleblow as the situation requires.
I would argue that any company which regularly makes or publishes statements and advertisements which are later shown to be misleading should be extremely careful, as the Directors of Tesco and many other large institutions who have made false statements about earnings etc will testify.
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>Some portal juggling is very clearly deliberate. Some is a genuine user error. Some is a fault of software.
I take that to mean you now agree that for portal juggling to be illegal it has to be deliberate.
As far as advertising is concerned I think the authorities have better things to spend their time on unless the contract between the customer and company is misleading. That would be far more serious. I think the key is that anything that may be a problem is put right in a spirit of co-operation.
See https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/sanctions.html
“if advertisers and broadcasters persistently break the Advertising Codes and don’t work with us we can and do refer them to other bodies for the further action, such as Trading Standards”
If an advertiser works with the ASA I would imagine that’s as far as it goes, especially considering there are serious crimes for the authorities to deal with and they have to be careful how they use taxpayers money.
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What point is it your trying to make now? Or is it the fact that Chris posted and you just couldn’t help yourself?
….and by the way, hitting the return key after every sentence to try and make your posts look bigger is akin to stuffing socks down your pants.
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wardy,
>What point is it your trying to make now?
If you read what I’ve written you should be able to work it out.
>hitting the return key after every sentence to try and make your posts look bigger is akin to stuffing socks down your pants.
Count the number of sentences in the above paragraph repeated here.
“As far as advertising is concerned I think the authorities have better things to spend their time on unless the contract between the customer and company is misleading. That would be far more serious. I think the key is that anything that may be a problem is put right in a spirit of co-operation.”
In case you are having trouble, there are 3 of them.
Last visit for the day so any reply won’t be read.
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”Last visit for the day so any reply won’t be read.”
yeah it will
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Who can I complain about the ASA to?
The term ‘informally resolved’ can only be described as a kick in the teeth to those who have the inclination to complain in the first place. There should be nothing informal about it. The damage has already been done, the misleading advertising has already influenced customers and those that play by the rules lose have lost out. How can this go unpunished?
If they are going to insist on informally resolving cases then how about making it standard procedure that once a particular company is found to be in breach of guide lines then every case there after is investigated fully and penalties applied.
Say what you want and withdraw if found out, easy.
The ASA are letting everyone down apart from the shysters that benefit from it.
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