Posted: 19th Nov, 2003 By: MarkJ
Following complaints by UK ISP
Freeserve, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a different complaint against both AOL UK and Tiscali for incorrectly comparing their dialup services to
Freeserves.
First up;
Freeserve complained that an unmetered dialup price comparison table in AOL UK's advert was unfair "
because it did not make clear that Freeserve's promotional price applied for three months, making their service cheaper than that of the advertisers over the whole three-month period.". The complaint was UPHELD.
Secondly;
Freeserve "
Objected to an e-mail advertisement that was headed "Are you paying too much for your Freeserve Internet connection?" The advertisement included a box that was headed "Tiscali Pay As You Go No monthly fee!" and claimed "Why pay £14.99 flat rate when you only need pay for the time you spend online? no monthly fee only pay for your time online calls charged at local rates no minimum contract period". The complainants, who offered a similar service with no monthly fee, objected that the advertisement misleadingly implied they charged customers £14.99 a month for a service similar to the advertisers' Pay As You Go service.". The complaint was UPHELD.