Misleading advert re free gift?

notanewuser

bris wrote: »

Are you really one of these people who believe you get something for nothing? Until the British public wake up to these marketing scams there will always be posts like this.

Not "for nothing", no. If they explicitly say I'll get something worth £10 then I expect something worth close to £10!! Not something that retails at £3!!

frugal_mike

bris wrote: »

Are you really one of these people who believe you get something for nothing? Until the British public wake up to these marketing scams there will always be posts like this.

If a company advertises something then they have to deliver it. I wouldn't expect the company offering the free gift to be actually paying £10 for the free gift, but the free gift should be retailing for £10 if the company makes that claim about its value.

My girlfriend works in marketing and she isn't allowed to run campaigns that claim free gifts are worth a specific value unless that gift can be bought at that value on its own.

It is possible to truly get something for free sometimes too. Some off the companies she works with offer a free gift with no minimum spend (nothing big, a free muffin or something). They usually seem happy with the increased footfall they get, and its cheaper for them than an advertising campaign.

notanewuser

Customer Seevices have replied to my complaint stating that the nail file is the free gift and they aren't prepared to do anything else. They are still advertising the £10 gift.

I've told them I'm going to ASA and Trading Standards, and I'll be mentioning the poor customer service in reviews wherever I can.

They could have shut me up for £9!!!

swingaloo

Did you place the order as 2 separate transactions?

notanewuser

swingaloo wrote: »

Did you place the order as 2 separate transactions?

I did a £36 order and a £52 order. Each order qualified for the gift.

pinkshoes

A very stupid marketing ploy by the company, which will no doubt anger their customers rather and turning them elsewhere.

I'd write to someone higher up and point out their incompetent staff!

notanewuser

pinkshoes wrote: »

A very stupid marketing ploy by the company, which will no doubt anger their customers rather and turning them elsewhere.

I'd write to someone higher up and point out their incompetent staff!

Not managed to crack their e-mail system yet. :-/

anamenottaken

Shoddy practice.

I see from their online terms and conditions, "We reserve the right, however, to change prices at any time without notice to you." So they could have increased the price of the nailfile for the time it took to pack your orders and then reverted to £3. (Though they made the mistake of quoting the price as £7.50.)

notanewuser

anamenottaken wrote: »

Shoddy practice.

I see from their online terms and conditions, "We reserve the right, however, to change prices at any time without notice to you." So they could have increased the price of the nailfile for the time it took to pack your orders and then reverted to £3. (Though they made the mistake of quoting the price as £7.50.)

You have to google search to find the nail files - a search on their site doesn't locate it. There's no cache to show it being sold at a higher price (its £2 elsewhere so £7.50/10 would be really pushing it!!).

I placed the order on Monday. Nothing on the site has changed since then.

cte1111

I've had a look at the site and am with you totally on this one. It clearly states a free gift worth £10 without any additional conditions. Here's the link to complain to the ASA:

http://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx

I'd supply links of other sites selling the nail files for £2 too.