Mweb, Telkom forced to withdraw misleading ads
Mweb and Telkom have had to withdraw advertisements that were misleading on the promise of benefits. A TimesLIVE report notes Paul van Ramesdonk had lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against a Telkom advertisement which states ‘Storage: 32 GB‚ 4GB RAM’.
Van Ramesdonk said the advertisement was misleading as one only receives a device with 3GB RAM and not 4GB RAM as stated in the commercial. Telkom acknowledged its error and said it had rectified the mistake by changing the wording in the advert.
In a separate complaint‚ Albert van der Merwe found an advertisement promoting free Wi-Fi access at hotspots around the country misleading. Van der Merwe said he was advised by Mweb’s customer care representative that the free Wi-Fi was discontinued in September 2017.
Mweb blamed human error and claimed the material referred in the complaint was not identified and amended. The company said it had removed references to free Wi-Fi after receiving the complaint. The ASA accepted the submissions made by both companies on condition that the advertisements complained about are not used again.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
