The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against six UK telecoms providers for failing to present information about mid-contract price rises in way that would be clear to consumers
All six were judged to have breached relatively new guidelines on the presentation of mid-contract price increases in advertising that came into force in December. As such, the watchdog has ordered all six to pull the ads in question.
The ASA issued separate, but linked, rulings against BT, EE, Plusnet, TalkTalk, Telefonica O2 and Virgin Media. In all six cases, the authority said it had received complaints that the presentation of information about mid-contract price rises in specific adverts from April and May last year was misleading.
Naturally, all the adverts are slightly different, but the over-arching theme is the way the operators positioned the headline prices for their broadband plans – and in O2's case, a trio of mobile data offers – followed by the relevant information about any mid-contract increases.
BT, EE and Plusnet were – understandably, given that they hail from the same stable – highly similar in the way they shared those details: they gave a headline figure then information on the price rises in smaller text. In BT and EE's case this information was given in pounds and pence, as per the upcoming Ofcom guidance in this area, while Plusnet stuck to an inflation-linked increase.
