Note: This advice is given by the CAP Executive about non-broadcast advertising. It does not constitute legal advice. It does not bind CAP, CAP advisory panels or the Advertising Standards Authority.
Some mobile phone contracts allow customers to post some of their bills back to the provider (typically at three month intervals) to claim credit to their network account.
The ASA investigated an ad that claimed "£4.99 LINE RENTAL PER MONTH FOR UP TO 12 MONTHS £30 THEREAFTER”. Customers paid £30 line rental every month and were eligible to recieve £75 of network credit every three months. Although customers who recieved the credit would (by the twelfth month) have paid the equivalent £4.99 a month for line rental, the ASA considered that as customers routinely had to make higher monthly payments than those listed in the ad, the claim was likely to mislead readers, even if it was followed by text stating “by redemption”. The ASA also considered that including the claim "by redemption" did not make the nature of the scheme clear to readers and told the advertiser to remove the reduced line rental prices from the ad.
The ASA also considered that, although the term “cashback” was an acceptable description of line rental redemption schemes in which money was paid either to customers or direct into their bank accounts, describing credit to a network account in that way was misleading. (Dial-a-Phone Ltd t/a Mobile Express, 18 January 2006).
Last modified : 14 October 2010