{"id":2468,"date":"2013-01-16T08:03:32","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T08:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2013-01-16T08:05:04","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T08:05:04","slug":"bt-broadband-isp-advert-banned-over-misleading-6-months-free-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/01\/bt-broadband-isp-advert-banned-over-misleading-6-months-free-offer.html","title":{"rendered":"BT Broadband ISP Advert Banned Over Misleading 6 Months Free Offer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/link\/asa\" target=\"_blank\">Advertising Standards Authority<\/a> UK (ASA) has also <strong>banned a TV and press advert<\/strong> for one of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/go\/britishtelecom\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">BT<\/a>&#8217;s broadband and phone bundles after it misleadingly claimed to be &#8220;<em>free for six months<\/em>&#8221; when in fact the line rental was still payable.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The two adverts shared a common problem of context confusion. For example, the TV advert promoted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/go\/britishtelecom\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">BT<\/a>&#8217;s package as costing &#8220;<em>just \u00a313 a month plus \u00a314.60 for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/go\/britishtelecom\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">BT<\/a> line. And now free for six months<\/em>,&#8221; which naturally caused some people to assume that the cost of line rental was also included with the &#8220;<em>free<\/em>&#8221; aspect when in fact it was not.<\/p>\n<p>BT agreed that the ads &#8220;<em>could have been clearer<\/em>&#8221; and blamed the ambiguity on an &#8220;<em>unintended consequence<\/em>&#8221; of the ASA&#8217;s recent line rental ruling, which requires ISPs to clearly state the cost of line rental alongside their broadband bundle prices.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"bq1\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.asa.org.uk\/Rulings\/Adjudications\/2013\/1\/British-Telecommunications-plc\/SHP_ADJ_210713.aspx\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>ASA Assessment (Complaint Ref: A12-210713)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>Because the line rental was in fact payable from the start of the contract and this was not made clear in the ads we concluded the claims were misleading<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A separate complaint, which noted that BT&#8217;s line rental would increase to \u00a315.45 in January 2013 and thus challenged whether the claim &#8220;<em>\u00a314.60 for a BT line<\/em>&#8221; in the TV ad was misleading, was not upheld &#8220;<em>because the date and amount of the price increase was made clear in the on-screen text<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Advertising Standards Authority UK (ASA) has also banned a TV and press advert for one of BT&#8217;s broadband and phone bundles after it misleadingly claimed to be &#8220;free for six months&#8221; when in fact the line rental was still payable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[99,474],"class_list":["post-2468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uk_isp_news","tag-asa","tag-bt"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - 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