BT’s ‘unbeatable’ broadband claims rapped by ASA after Virgin Media complaints
BT has been rapped by the ASA for its claims that its broadbands was ‘unbeatable’, with Virgin Media and three other complainants contacting the standards body.
It was suggested the claim was misleading because it did not state the speed was available with certain packages only; that speeds were not faster for all activities listed, including online gaming and shopping; and that claims that it was four times faster than Sky being unsubstantiated.
Clearcast said it was not advised by BT that the telecoms company had two different upload speeds, adding that if it had been advised of that, it would have required BT to qualify the claim to advise viewers that the claim referred to the Option 2 package only.
The ASA said: “While we acknowledged BT's statement that the claim was a top parity claim, we noted we had not seen evidence that BT's download speeds were unbeatable, and concluded the claims in the ads had not been substantiated and were misleading.”