ASA Ban 1pMobile Adverts for Misleading “UK’s cheapest pre-pay tariff” Claim

Mobile operator 1pMobile (MVNO) has had a Website and Facebook advert for their service banned by the Advertising Standards Authority after they failed to prove that their service was really the “UK’s cheapest pre-pay tariff” or the “most flexible“.

The operator offers a tariff of 1p per minute to UK landlines and mobiles, 1p per text to UK mobiles, 1p per MB of data and on top of that their “flexible” claim was based on a £5 top-up, which could be used for all calls, texts and data, compared with their competitors who specified a cap on each of those features (NOTE: 1p’s website currently states that those who join need to pay an initial £10 top-up).

However the ASA noted that a comparison site provided by 1pMobile was not good enough to prove the operator’s claim because the ASA “could not verify the price comparisons at the time the ad was seen” (January 2017) and they also found some other problems with the promotions.

ASA Ruling (REF: A17-369177)

We noted 1pMobile’s assertion that they described their tariff as “flexible” because unlike them, their competitors specified a cap for each £5 top-up. However, we did not consider that this was clear from ad (b) which would have different meanings among consumers. Nevertheless, we considered that most consumers would understand that a top-up would last for one month unless otherwise stated.

Furthermore, we understood that consumers were likely to select a tariff which closely met their mobile usage requirements – for example, a higher or cheaper text message allowance over calls or data if that was their preferred method of communication. With that in mind, we understood that other mobile phone PAYG providers offered a £10 top-up which although their call minutes and data were capped, the text allowance was unlimited. Therefore, on a pro-rata basis those providers could be cheaper than 1pMobile depending on how the allowances were used.

Because 1pMobile had not provided adequate evidence to support their claims to be the cheapest mobile service and that other providers were cheaper on a pro-rata basis, we concluded the ad was misleading and had not been substantiated.

As usual the ASA told 1pMobile to stop claiming that they were the UK’s cheapest pre-pay mobile service or had the cheapest tariff, unless it could be substantiated. However a quick glance at the operator’s website today still shows “The UK’s cheapest PAYG tariff” in big bold text on the front page, although we expect they’ll soon be removing that.