An online service which charges for stopping so-called ‘nuisance phone calls’ has been forced to overhaul its website after the ad watchdog deemed it looked ‘too official’ and ‘hid’ the fact it was a paid-for service.
The site, for The Advertising Protection Agency, included the line: “(TAPA) stops unsolicited advertising and marketing sales approaches being made to consumers and businesses by way of telephone, fax and email that do not wish to receive these types of unsolicited marketing approaches… TAPA works to permanently prevent any further unsolicited marketing approaches being made to them in the future…”
On the terms of service webpage, under the heading “stop nuisance calls”, text stated “The client shall pay an annual administration fee of £26.95 initially This fee is based on a monthly subsidy of £2.25 per calendar month … A further annual administration fee of £9.95 will be due payable initially to register any additional telephone numbers above five numbers (6+).”
But an Advertising Standards Authority investigation ruled that in light of the name, service and content, the overall appearance of the site could lead users to infer it was an official government service and therefore concluded the ad was misleading.
On a second point, the ASA noted that the charging information appeared at the bottom of a large block of text, and considered it might not be clear to some consumers there was a charge for TAPA’s services, ruling this, too, was misleading.
