MSE slammed by Watchdog Advertising Standards Agency.

Nilrem

Azari wrote: »

The ASA

These are the idiots who allow:

1) People to advertise TV's and monitors with 19" visible screens as 20" because there is some screen behind a bezel.

2) People to advertise disks as 100GB using a different definition of GB to that which is universally used on the equipment to which they are going to be connected.

3) People to advertise 'unlimited' telecom services that have limits in place.


To suggest they are as useful as a chocolate teapot is to be absurdly generous.

I thought that 1: was changed many moons ago.
I remember a bit of a fuss when it came in because CRT monitors were from memory handled differently to TV's for a while (I've got a feeling that TV's had to be measured from the visible portion of the screen from about the early 90's, whilst monitors were done so from a few years later - or was it the other way round).

2: That's a difficult one - 100Gb as used by drive manufacturers reflects the generally used scientifically (and mathematically in base 10) correct definition for everything but computer use. Whilst the term in computers language uses a specific but different circumstances. It's also made harder anyway, as regardless of which definition they use how much space you get off the drive varies depending on your chosen file system and OS*

3: I generally agree with you on, although it's again worth noting that the ASA look at the language used - you can have an unlimited connectivity (IE they don't cut you off) contract for BB, but that is different to an unlimited connection where you don't have any restrictions based on usage (IE throttling).

The ASA tends to work in the tricky area where a definition of a word can make all the difference, and usually they're dealing with people who can afford to hire lawyers at least as good as their own, and unlike the ASA the defending lawyers might only be arguing in one case at a time, whilst the ASA has to deal with loads of cases and on a limited budget.
Unfortunately for the consumer often the legal definition (what the ASA generally has to go by), can be different to what we might assume - there is a big difference to "unlimited" as in "you don't get connected" and "unlimited" as in "unlimited bandwidth" for BB connections for example, but both can be correct.


*IIRC you get more usable space with FAT32 in some circumstances than NTFS because NTFS has additional features to help prevent data loss, and register things like file ownership, and things like changing the block size during partitioning/formatting can dramatically increase the size of the file allocation table, reducing the amount of usable space.

JReacher1

So what's the result of this? It seems they've just been told to be more careful in future.

Is this not just a waste of everyone's time!

JReacher1

Cliecost wrote: »

I completely agree with all that, but here's another infuriating one!

FREE BROADBAND*

*monthly line rental required

Anything that says FREE should be just that, with no other costs involved!

Broadband is an additional service so I don't see what the problem with that advert is.

You need to pay line rental to get a phone line which can be used for several different services. Most of these services are chargeable so advertising one as free seems more than fair.

Zedicus

JReacher1 wrote: »

Broadband is an additional service so I don't see what the problem with that advert is.

It's a difficult concept and one that a lot of people struggle with. I'll try and explain.

The basic idea is that when something is free you don't have to pay anything for it. Nothing at all. Nada. Zilch.

Those adverts claim they are offering a free broadband service but it turns out that you have to pay the company money before you can use it. So, you see, it isn't actually free at all.

Hope that has made it easier to understand.

JReacher1

Zedicus wrote: »

It's a difficult concept and one that a lot of people struggle with. I'll try and explain.

The basic idea is that when something is free you don't have to pay anything for it. Nothing at all. Nada. Zilch.

Those adverts claim they are offering a free broadband service but it turns out that you have to pay the company money before you can use it. So, you see, it isn't actually free at all.

Hope that has made it easier to understand.

But the broadband is still free!

Are you saying that freeview isn't free as you need to buy a tv and box to watch it?

As some companies charge for broadband and line rental it is perfectly fair for a company that doesn't charge for broadband to refer to the broadband as free.

Azari

JReacher1 wrote: »

Broadband is an additional service so I don't see what the problem with that advert is.

You need to pay line rental to get a phone line which can be used for several different services. Most of these services are chargeable so advertising one as free seems more than fair.

It's probably not a problem for people who use a landline, as they will have a physical line anyway.

But for someone who only uses a mobile and doesn't have or want a landline the advert - or at least the stuff in big letters - is misleading.

All they want is broadband - the ad says they can have it free - and yet, if they want it, they have to pay for it. So it's not free at all.

Zedicus

JReacher1 wrote: »

But the broadband is still free!

Only if you change the definition of "free" to "something you have to pay for".

Are you saying that freeview isn't free as you need to buy a tv and box to watch it?

Freeview is free because you don't have to pay the people who provide it anything. If someone really provided free broadband - i.e.such that you didn't have to pay them a penny, it would still be free even though you needed a modem and some sort of computer to use it.

As some companies charge for broadband and line rental it is perfectly fair for a company that doesn't charge for broadband to refer to the broadband as free.

Except that it is charging for broadband. It's just that they are bundling the broadband and line rental together and pretending that one part is free. Of course, anyone with the slightest hint of intelligence knows that it isn't. You have to pay them money and some of that money is used to pay for the line and some of it is used to pay for the broadband. The adverts presumably appeal to the more gullible type who will believe any old pap that's fed to them.

bod1467

Zedicus wrote: »

The adverts presumably appeal to the more gullible type who will believe any old pap that's fed to them.

In other words, TalkTalk customers? :rotfl:

JReacher1

Zedicus wrote: »

Except that it is charging for broadband. It's just that they are bundling the broadband and line rental together and pretending that one part is free. Of course, anyone with the slightest hint of intelligence knows that it isn't. You have to pay them money and some of that money is used to pay for the line and some of it is used to pay for the broadband. The adverts presumably appeal to the more gullible type who will believe any old pap that's fed to them.

There's no need to be insulting. You want to improve your personal demeanour and be more pleasant to people.

Line rental and broadband are separate costs. The line rental cost would be the same whether you opt for broadband or not. Therefore that aspect of the service is free.

I accept that people who don't understand how phone lines work could find it confusing. Sky are currently giving me free broadband for a year. However I am paying for line rental. I still think the broadband is free as I'm not paying for it like I was previously.

If you think that makes me "gullible" then that's fine by me but I'm still saving £7.50 a month! Which is very MSE.

reehsetin

JReacher1 wrote: »

Broadband is an additional service so I don't see what the problem with that advert is.

You need to pay line rental to get a phone line which can be used for several different services. Most of these services are chargeable so advertising one as free seems more than fair.

I don't want a home phone line - ever, I want broadband, it's not an additional service it's the core service for me and many like me.
I can't get broadband without a phone line and adverts promoting broadband alone should not just be able to hide away phone costs which cannot be avoided under an asterix

Re the MSE ruling from the ASA, I don't think MSE were in the wrong and agree that there wasn't much more they could have done. What's annoyed me is that nothing was reported from MSE about the ruling on here. I've always believed MSE to be transparent and open (...as much as possible anyway) and I can't understand why nothing was posted by MSE proactively explaining their position.