The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a Vodafone advert over a misleading claim that it was ‘The UK’s only guaranteed phone buy-back’ company.
The claim – which appeared on the company’s website, in national press, TV, radio and in a promoted tweet – was ordered to be withdrawn after Sky UK raised the issue that Vodafone did not, in fact, buy back all phones.
Sky UK challenged the accuracy of the telecom company‘s claims, arguing that the adverts were “misleading” and “could not be substantiated” as Vodafone did not buy back devices in all circumstances and is not the only UK company offering phone buy-back guarantees.
One of the contested adverts featured the text, ‘iPhone14 Pro. Pro. Beyond’ with an image of the phone, saying it could be bought “On Vodafone EVO with the UK’s only phone buy-back guarantee”, and there was a “guaranteed buy-back price when you trade it in”.
Other ads merely included the text without mentioning the iPhone 14.
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Vodafone countered that the ads did not claim that they would buy back phones in all circumstances and that notable exceptions included lost or stolen phones which customers would “expect” and “consider them reasonable”.
The company – which recently announced it will be cutting 11,000 jobs worldwide over next three years – also said it was aware that Sky’s trade-in scheme, Sky Swap, did not guarantee the price offered to the customer because it was subject to market value adjustment, meaning that customers might not receive the buy-back price they were originally offered at the time the phone was purchased.
The ASA has ordered Vodafone to pull the ad, noting that any future advertising must be “sufficiently clear” that the offer only referred to iPhone 14 and that the telecom firm was not the only UK provider to provide a buy-back-scheme unless they “held objective comparative evidence in support of that claim”.
The ASA’s decision follows a previous incident in which the telecoms company was last year instructed to remove an ad for misleadingly claiming they were ‘The UK’s reliable, award-winning network”.
