The ad was for Plumbers Direct. The firm behind the service, 1st Action, has been ordered to remove the claim from its advertising because it breaches the ASA's rules on truthfulness and substantiation of its claims.
The advert appeared in directory listings and said: "1 hr Service – No Call Out Charge to your door – 24 hr Service – Free Estimates".
A complaint was made about the claims, and 1st Action told the ASA that "they did not charge a call out charge to the door of the property but that they began charging when they entered the property".
"They believed this was in line with how other companies operated and with earlier advice from CAP [Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing]," said the ruling.
In fact the phrase had previously been cleared by the CAP Code copy advice service which advises on what adverts can and cannot claim. It said five years ago that the phrase 'no call out charge to your door' is acceptable, but the ASA said that it could not mean what Plumbers Direct used it to mean.
"A number of published ASA adjudications since then, however, had clarified the interpretation of the claim to mean that customers who had called an engineer could decline the work after the engineer had arrived at their property without incurring a charge," said the ASA. "Because 1st Action customers were always charged for a minimum of one hours work once the engineer arrived at their property, even if they declined the work, we considered 1st Action had not substantiated the claim."
The company was told to remove the claim from any further adverts.
A second complaint that the company did not provide free quotations for work, as they claimed, was not upheld by the ASA. It said that 1st Action had provided adequate evidence that it did provide free quotes.
