Online headphone retailer iheadphones.co.uk, run by Nusystems Ltd, was investigated by advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), which found that a competition it ran broke the ASA's rules on truthfulness, competitions and administration.
Iheadphones carries customer reviews of headphones and in order to encourage users of the site to write reviews it offered a prize for the best review submitted last October. That prize, a £329.99 pair of headphones, has never been awarded despite the submission of hundreds of reviews.
"Iheadphones said the response to the competition was overwhelming and that they had been inundated with reviews for hundreds of products," said the ASA ruling. "They explained that, by the time it came to judging the competition, the two members of staff who had the best knowledge of all the products, and whose job it was to pick the winners, were no longer with the company."
Iheadphones also said that it was busy during the Christmas period, and that it was not aware how serious it was to have delayed the process of choosing a winner of its prize.
The ASA said that the competition should have been run better, and that entrants should have been informed of any changes to the way it was run.
"The lengthy delay to the judging process could cause participants unnecessary disappointment," said its ruling. "We also considered that iheadphones should have notified consumers that the competition would be delayed, and provided them with details of when the winner would be decided. Because the competition had not been administered in that way, we concluded that the ad breached the Code."
The ASA said that the competition had broken its rules on substantiation truthfulness, sales promotion rules, administration and closing dates.
Despite the finding that the competition had broken its rules, though, the ASA said that it did not think that the company was attempting to mislead the public.
"We acknowledged that the problem with the competition's administration was largely beyond iheadphones' control, and we welcomed iheadphones' assurance that the competition entries would still be judged and a winner chosen, in line with the original ad. We therefore considered that the competition was genuine," it said.
In recent months the running of competitions by businesses has proved controversial. Broadcasters were fined millions of pounds last year over phone in competitions that were judged to have misled the public.
Changes to the rules surrounding lotteries and gambling last year have also reminded companies that competitions should be run in line with all the appropriate rules and laws.
