Advertisment
The post advertised a competition and offered a prize of “… €100 to spend @kilogram”.
Complaint
The complainant said the competition was for a 100-euro gift card to spend on their online clothes shop.
The complaint said they had won the mentioned competition, but at the time of the complaint, had not received their prize. They said after they won, they messaged the advertisers’ page and got a reply congratulating them and telling them to pick their items off the site, tell the advertisers what they wanted and provide them with an address.
The complainant said for Black Friday the advertisers launched a half-price sale which meant their prize would stretch a little further. They finished picking out their items and messaged the advertisers letting them know they were ready to order. They said the advertisers stated that the items would be full price and they could not avail of the discount. The complainant said they were surprised about this and told the advertisers that they thought that it was unfair that they would be charged twice the current selling price. The advertisers said that they had not claimed their prize and that because it had been 3 weeks since they won, they were running a new competition for 100-euro credit. They said the advertisers explained that if they had bought a gift card from them that they could have used it during the sale. They complainant said they told the advertisers that they had no idea the prize had to be used immediately as gift cards never work that way and that they were disappointed.
The complainant said they sent the advertisers their address and the items they picked and got no reply but assumed they were posting their order. A week later they asked for an update and got no reply. A few days later they asked again, and then again, and then again and have received no replies since.
Response
The advertisers stated that on October 26th they ran their “Halloween Giveaway” for one of their customers to win €100 to spend on Kilogarm.com. They said the winner of this giveaway was announced on the 31st of October.
They said the way they processed this giveaway was by informing the winner that they could choose up to €95 worth of products from the Kilogarm website, and that the €5 covered shipping. They said they messaged the winner in November and on November 22nd, 21 days after the giveaway winner had been contacted, was when the prize was claimed.
They said on November 20th they had launched their Black Friday giveaway as their Black Friday sale had begun. They said the winner from their Halloween Giveaway was informed that the stock chosen would have to be full price, not sale prices as the giveaway that they won was not during a sale period. They said this was because they had launched their giveaway for Black Friday already, as they had not heard back from this customer. They said they were under the impression that the complainant was not going to claim their prize. They said as they had another giveaway running, it was not financially feasible for them to let the complainant have items at sale price to the value of €95 while they were already offering this to another potential winner. They said as this new giveaway was already running, they could not simply cancel it or delete it as that would have unfair to people who had already entered to win.
They said it should also be noted that the prize was never stated to be a gift card. It was simply a giveaway of €100 worth of a Kilogarm order.
Further information:
The ASAI Executive asked the advertisers if they provided any Terms and Conditions for the offer, and if so, were they published with the competition. They did not respond.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Committee noted that Terms and Conditions for the competition had not been submitted to the ASAI, nor was there any reference to them in the advertising material. They noted the advertising claim “win €100 to spend @kilogram” was not qualified nor restricted to full price products. In the circumstances, they considered that the competition was in breach of Sections 4.1, 4.4, 5.15(a), and 5.35 of the Code.
ACTION REQUIRED:
The advertisers should ensure that their competitions include terms and conditions which clearly set out to entrants any restrictions on the use of prizes.
