On the 4th of this month a trader, Premier Electrics of Southampton lost it’s case with the Advertising Standards Authority over advertising a “No Call Out Charge” to customers. The ASA have ruled that this is misleading advertising and may well set a president for our industry which heavily advertises “No Callout Fees” and the likes in local news publications, Yellow Pages and the likes.
Details from the ASA website are as follows;
“Complaint:
Objection, via Southampton City Council, to a directory advertisement for a white goods repair service. The headline stated “No Call Out Charge”. In smaller type the subheading stated “Diagnostic work charged unless work undertaken”. The complainant objected that the headline “No Call Out Charge” was misleading, because customers who did not need maintenance work were charged a diagnostic fee.
Adjudication:
Complaint upheld
The advertisers said they had prepared the advertisement with help from the CAP Copy Advice team. They believed their use of “no call out charge” was justified because they did not make a charge for going to customers’ homes. They said they always made a diagnostic charge, which they waived if the customer made a purchase or a repair was undertaken. The advertisers said they charged for diagnosis only once and did not charge customers who called them out again for follow-up diagnostic work. They said they explained their charges to customers before telephone bookings were accepted. They argued that the advertisement made clear that they charged a diagnosis fee unless work was undertaken. The advertisers said many of their competitors who advertised “no call out charge” also made a diagnostic charge but did not mention it in their advertising.
The Authority acknowledged the advertisers had taken advice from the CAP Copy Advice team. It considered, however, that customers would understand “No Call Out Charge” to mean they paid a charge only if repair work was carried out and would not pay a charge for calling the advertisers out to diagnose a problem. The Authority considered that the claim “Diagnostic work charged unless work undertaken” contradicted the headline “No Call Out Charge” and asked the advertisers not to repeat the headline.”
Whilst many very good and reputable traders do advertise free callouts etc. as they are often forced commercially to do so, it is generally advisable to check if a repairer is either a member of DASA or a UK Whitegoods Charter member, both of which do offer a better guarantee of a quality service, many you will find subscribe to both organisations. Also check the other qualifications that a repairer may have, like do they hold any agencies, do they hae liability insurance as, for agency work and UKW/DASA they must have this.
As I said though, there’s no evidence at all to support the notion that offering a free call out is the sign of a bad repairer at all and there is no evidence in this article that points to the company involved being anything other than reputable. This is merely the judgement as metered by the ASA.