Agent's website claim to be 'leading' unproven, says advertising watchdog

Wednesday 22nd February 2012

An estate agent’s adverts which said it had become the leading agent in its area were reported to the advertising watchdog after a competitor complained.

Bartrop & Dilks Property Services in Worksop, Nottingham, was said to have made the claim on a website ad and two circulars.

But it told the Advertising Standards Authority it had no knowledge of the two circulars being distributed on the dates complained about, and it had left the claim up on its website in error.

On one flyer it said: “We have become Worksop’s leading estate agent having 32.56% of market share based on ‘most homes sold’ … Why choose any other agent in Workshop.”

The second flyer made a similar claim, while the agent’s website said it had become Worksop’s leading agent in 2011, with most homes sold. Further text stated: “It’s official. After just over three years since we opened, we are now pleased to announce we have become Worksop’s Leading Estate Agent having 35.68% of the market share based on ‘Most Homes Sold’ registered online in 2011.”  

Small text at the foot made reference to the data having come from Vizzihome.

Competitor David Hawke Property Services objected to the claim ‘Worksop’s leading estate agent’, telling the ASA that it was misleading.

Bartrop & Dilks said that they did not believe they had distributed the leaflets on the dates in question. They said the leaflets had previously been used by their company but had not been distributed for at least six months. They said they had checked with all staff members and had been assured that no one had distributed the leaflets.

They said they did not intend to use these leaflets or the claim ‘Worksop’s leading estate agent’ in future.

Bartrop & Dilks said they had left the downloadable image that included the claim on their website in error after assuring the ASA on an earlier date that they would not use the claim. They removed the claim from their website.

The ASA upheld the complaint in relation to the website.

The ASA also noted that the website’s small print stated: “There may be other Companies/Offices which exceed these figures but do not publish their data on the internet” and that the claim was based on ‘Most Homes Sold’ registered online in 2011, but considered this insufficient to qualify the claim to be ‘leading’.

The ASA concluded that, because the data it was based on excluded competitors who did not make their sold data available online, the claim was misleading.

The ASA told Bartrop & Dilks not to claim to be ‘leading’ unless they held robust evidence that this was the case.