The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found that across September and October last year, the Argos website ran a series of misleading adverts selling XBox gaming consoles.
The ads in question included on-screen prompts making unsubstantiated claims such as “Going Fast! Last purchased 1 minute ago”, “Selling Fast! Purchased 24 times since your last visit” and “In Demand! 100+ others added this to basket today”.
Various complaints were made after customers became aware that certain Xbox models were temporarily out of stock, and yet the Argos website still displayed the above on-screen prompts.
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In response, the retailer alleged that stock availability depended on geographical location, and this information had been made public on its website.
Upholding the customers’ complaints, a spokesperson for the regulatory body said: “We considered that the evidence provided was not enough to demonstrate that the product featured was widely available to purchase, or that Argos had communicated to consumers that they might not be able to supply the product within a reasonable period and in reasonable quantities. In the absence of such evidence, we concluded that the ad was misleading and breached the Code.
Concluding, the ASA said that the ads “must not appear again in the forms complained about,” adding that they have the retailer to “ensure that they held evidence to demonstrate that they had made a reasonable estimate of demand, and that their website accurately portrayed the availability of products in the future.”
