The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has rapped online retailer eBuyer over the firm's "material misleading" use of user submitted product reviews.
A listing for a "Foehn & Hirsch Portable WiFi Internet Radio" was displayed with a 4.5 star customer rating with 17 reviews. One customer was apparently not so pleased with the product and wrote a less favorable review.
When the review didn't appear, they complained to the ASA on the basis that the displayed reviews created a "favourable impression" rather than a representative sample.
eBuyer said only that the reviews were approved by project managers and suggested that positive reviews were "most useful" (for sales no doubt). The ASA wasn't having any of it.
We considered that negative reviews were likely to be as useful to consumers as positive reviews," they said noting that: "by omitting negative reviews, Ebuyer created a favourable impression that was likely to mislead consumers into purchasing the product."
The watchdog ruled the ad couldn't appear in the current form and ordered eBuyer "not to mislead consumers by selecting material to create a favourable impression."
With that the message is clear. If retailers are going to use user submitted reviews then it's the full monty or none at all.
The watchdog also noted that there wasn't any information as to how the score was calculated but didn't specific say that this should be the case.
Advertisement
Related Stories
- ASA slaps Talk Talk for 'UK's Safest Broadband" claim Jan 5th 2012 at 6:22AM
- Motorola rapped for 'worlds most powerful smartphone' ad Aug 24th 2011 at 11:34PM
- Virgin rapped for 'misleading' broadband speed ads Jul 14th 2011 at 9:15AM
- British advertising watchdog expands online remit Sep 1st 2010 at 11:24AM
- Westcoast and Ebuyer hit by credit reductions Dec 5th 2008 at 10:42AM
- Carphone may lodge ASA complaint Sep 12th 2008 at 10:55AM
- iPhone advert banned Aug 27th 2008 at 10:12AM
- ASA slams Virgin over broadband ads Jul 2nd 2008 at 2:10PM
- Orderwork and Ebuyer ink partnership Oct 17th 2007 at 10:20AM
- Currys let off by ASA Sep 6th 2007 at 12:37PM
Add a new comment
You need to be logged in to post comments. If you do not have an account then please register.
Comments
0 comments
There are no comments yet, be the first to add one!