Utility Warehouse UK Mobile Ad Banned for Lack of Clarity on Unlimited Data Limits

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert on the website of energy and communications provider Utility Warehouse (UW –  Telecom Plus), which promoted an “Unlimited data” mobile plan, after it was found to have failed to make the Fair Usage Policy (FUP) restrictions for data (mobile broadband) usage “sufficiently clear“.

The original complainant initially challenged whether the claim that the data plans were “Unlimited” was misleading because, 1) an FUP of 500 GigaBytes (GB) applied and, 2) the ad did not make the FUP restriction sufficiently clear.

However, the ASA rejected the first complaint, primarily because it found that “legitimate users did not incur charges, suspension or service restrictions as a result of exceeding 500 GB, and because the 500 GB threshold did not operate as a routine cap on legitimate personal use“.

At this point it’s worth noting that a lot of mobile network operators in the UK often put similar FUPs on the “unlimited data” part of such mobile plans and this is usually viewed as a soft cap, which is rarely enforced with much vigour against legitimate consumer traffic. But while the ASA didn’t have a problem with the 500GB figure, they did uphold the second complaint because the advert failed to express the restriction clearly enough.

ASA Ruling Ref: A26-1331986 Utility Warehouse Ltd

We noted that, although the main page stated, “Enjoy unlimited data” and the linked page referred to “Unlimited data” and “endless surfing, streaming, and scrolling”, neither page stated in the main text that a 500 GB fair use restriction applied.

We acknowledged that, on both pages, an expandable section headed “The legal bit” included the statement “Data consumption subject to 500GB personal usage cap”, and that links to the terms and fair use policy were provided there. However, we considered that consumers were unlikely to understand from the headline claims alone that any restriction applied to the advertised “unlimited” service. We further considered that consumers would not necessarily click to expand “The legal bit”, even if it appeared beneath the main text, and that the qualification could therefore easily be overlooked.

Although the 500 GB threshold did not operate as a routine cap on legitimate personal use, and therefore the “unlimited” claim was not misleading in itself, because the information appeared only within an expandable section and was not directly signposted alongside the main “unlimited” claims, we nevertheless considered that the qualification had not been presented clearly. For those reasons, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), and 3.9 and 3.10 (Qualifications).

As usual the ASA told UW not to show the same promotion again, unless they ensured that their unlimited claims were “directly qualified with the terms of their fair use policy“. The ruling is relevant to other mobile operators too, as others also failed to express the FUP’s usage caveat as clearly as they probably should.

Still, we suspect this won’t completely settle the wider debate about whether it’s ever right to have an FUP restriction like this on plans marketed as offering “unlimited data“.