Published on : Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Advertising Standards Authority has condemned Victoria Plumb, a Hull-based bathroom e-tailer, for an Autumn Savings Event banner on its website that was believed to have displayed misleading prices.
The company claimed a Bologna wall-mounted basin and an Escala waterfall basin mixer tap were on sale at £80 and £90 reductions respectively. These prices were challenged by a complainant, who said that the products, pictured, hadn’t previously been sold at the prices listed.
Despite the company saying the prices were genuine, Victoria Plumb did not provide supporting evidence and has subsequently been banned from displaying the advert in its current form again.
“We considered that Victoria Plumb needed to provide documentary evidence showing that the items had been sold at the higher prices listed in the ad for a sufficiently long period to ensure that they were genuine retail prices and that consumer were not misled by the savings claims,” the ASA stated. “Because we had seen no evidence to demonstrate that, we concluded that the ‘was’ prices had not been substantiated and were therefore misleading.”
Victoria Plumb – which is rumoured to be up for sale – created controversy last summer with a television advert using the strapline ‘quality bathrooms, not costly showrooms’ suggesting that salespeople were an unnecessary extra in the bathroom buying process.
Tags: Advertising Standards Authority, Victoria Plumb
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