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also noted that the website’s small print stated: “There may be other Companies/Offices which exceed these figures but do not publish their data on the internet” and that the claim was based on ‘Most Homes Sold’ registered online in 2011, but considered this insufficient to qualify the claim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.
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Comments
Well, any agent quoting sources such as vizzihome or other such sites with unreliable sources of data should be referred to ASA whenever they make claims based upon that data.
I agree with Dave.
The ASA are totally toothless. If they had the power to ban people from advertising then these things might improve.
However if that ever became the case we would not need the ASA.
So when TESCO misleads as it does frequently according to the ASA then according to Industry Observer they should be prevented from advertising for 3 months. They might save £Millions as a result with no discernible loss of trade, as if they care!
Haha - I'm guessing that's a comment made by one of the allAgents developers. I tried to visit the site today and it's a shambles.
That's one down and about another 5000 cases pending - funny too how whenever this happens it is an error or an oversight - every time.
But Dave is right and unless there is a penalty like prohibiting advertising in all forms for say three months then what is the point of the ASA anyway.
and the ASA issued what penalty? They are toothless. What ever the rights and wrongs, bit of a joke defence! but they found they were wrong and did nothing. What a waste of time.
It would be interesting to see where leaders are in Allagents league tables!