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Purplebricks takes down website claims after ASA probe

Fourth complaint to advertising watchdog within a year, this time over claims it "finds buyers" within 14 days.

Nigel Lewis

Purplebricks has been reported to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) once more for claims made on its website and, following a probe by the watchdog, subsequently taken down.

The claims under scrutiny on this occasion are that it “takes us just 14 days to find a buyer” but, after the complainant clicked an icon next to the claim, it clarified that “the average time taken from a property going live to a viewing being booked for the eventual purchaser is 14 days”.

A similar claim made for the Purplebricks’ lettings operation was also contested by the complainant. Using an identical device, the company said: “6 days – on average it takes us just 6 days to find a tenant”.

Upon clicking an icon next to this text the following text appeared in a pop up: “The average time taken from a property going live to a viewing being booked for the eventual tenant is 6 days.”

Misleading?

The ASA says the complainant suggested that both claims were misleading and could be substantiated and, after the ASA contacted Purplebricks, the company agreed to remove the claims and the case was resolved informally.

This is now the fourth complaint received against Purplebricks since September 2016. Two have been serious enough complaints to warrant full rulings, both of which were upheld in part. The other two – which includes today’s announcement – were informally resolved.

The claims are not new ones – for the past six months Purplebricks has been making identical ’14-day’ and ‘6 days’ claims in print adverts that have run in magazines (see above), without the clarification that prompted today’s ruling.

March 29, 2017

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