Advertisment
A radio advertisement for CityPOST stated:
“Are you the person that needs to lick the stamps or frank every single piece of mail, then bring all the post to the post box on the way home from work? Did you know that each stamp now costs €1? Tell your finance department you’ve had an idea that beat (sic) the postal increase.
Switch to CityPOST and they’ll come pick up the mail from your business and post it off for 79c per letter with no pick up charge. No more hours of franking or walking to the post box, leaving you time to do something a little more interesting. CityPOST.ie – the low cost postal provider.”
A CityPOST PostPick-Up Brochure stated:
Page 2:
“What is Post Pick-Up?
Save 21% on your mail without leaving your desk, CityPOST will pick up your mail directly from your business and post it nationally or internationally*
For businesses that operate in most business districts and industrial estates, CityPOST will provide a pickup service from your business and you can avail of the lowest postal and parcel prices in the market.*
Simply go online and book your collection, top up your Postal account and fill up the FREE mail pouch provided by CityPOST, and we will collect from your business daily or three times per week, depending on your volumes.
CityPOST will process your mail, and for tracking purposes will apply a unique barcode on each letter. This mail will then be injected into the national postal network, or will be delivered by us on a typical three to four day delivery.
Better still, your international mail is handed over to the national postal providers globally in less than 10 hours from leaving our mail centre.
Book your FREE COLLECTION at CityPOST.ie/postpickup
*Subject to Coverage and minimum Volume requirement”
Page 3:
Just fill it up and we’ll do the rest!
The image of a CityPOST envelope with mail being placed inside it was used. Text was partially shown on the front of the envelope which included: ‘up to 20%*’ and ‘FREE POSTAL PICK-UP’.
Page 5:
FREE POSTAL PICK-UP
Save up to 21%
On your Annual National & International Post
CityPOST will pick-up your mail from your business and post it for 79c*
An Post:
€1.00
For every letter posted at the Post Office
CityPOST:
€0.79*
For every letter collected by CityPost
* Subject to Terms and Conditions, Coverage & Minimum Pickup Volumes. Vat is chargeable on non-Universal Service Delivery
On Page 7 the rates were compared against the standard postal rates from An Post and included the following:
Zone 1: 100g CityPOST €0.79 An Post: €1.00 % Saving Vs An Post 21%
Zone 2: 100g CityPOST €0.99 An Post: €1.35 % Saving Vs An Post 27%
Notes at the end of page 7 stated:
“1. Comparison is based on the Standard postal Rates effective 18th April 2017 Published by An Post
2. (Subject to Vat if CityPOST Delivered / No Vat on the % Injected into the national or International Universal Services
3. Free Collection is Based on a average of 40 Letters per Pickup. A Modest Collection fee of €1.99 is applied on a pro rata Weekly basis based on your usage”
Page 8 detailed CityPost postal collection rates for various zones compared to An Post’s rates and the percentage savings, a sample of which included:
Zone 1
Ireland & Northern Ireland
Weight up to 100gr
CityPOST €2.89
An Post €3.30
% Saving v’s An Post 12%
Weight up to 250gr
CityPOST €3.59
An Post €4.10
% Saving v’s An Post 12%
Weight up to 500gr
CityPOST €4.49
An Post €5.25
% Saving v’s An Post 14%
Weight up to 1000gr
CityPOST €6.79
An Post €8.00
% Saving v’s An Post 15%
Zone 2
United Kingdom
Weight up to 100gr
CityPOST €3.89
An Post €4.50
% Saving v’s An Post 14%
Zone 3
Europe & Rest of the World
Weight up to100gr
CityPOST €3.89
An Post €4.50
% Saving v’s An Post 14%
Notes at the end of the table indicated that:
“1. Comparison is based on the Standard postal rates effective 18th April 2017 published by An Post.
2. (Subject to VAT if CityPost delivered/No VAT on the % injected into the national or international Universal services.
3. Free collection is based on an average of 40 Letters per Pickup. A modest collection fee of €1.99 is applied on a pro rata Weekly basis based on your usage.”
Complaint
An Post objected to both the radio and the leaflet advertising from CityPOST.
Complaint 1 – Radio Advertising:
An Post considered that the sentences “are you the person that needs to lick the stamps or frank every single piece of mail, then bring all the post to the post box on the way home from work?” and “Did you know that each stamp now costs €1?” put together were misleading. While they accepted that both sentences in isolation were correct, they considered that any normal listener could easily be misled into thinking that there was no difference between the price of a stamp and a franked mail item, when there was in fact a difference. They said that An Post offered a range of services at different price points and that while a stamped letter cost €1, a franked letter cost 90c but could cost as little as 60c if bulk mailing. They considered that the inclusion of the statement “no more hours of franking” was conflating two different priced products. They considered that by highlighting only the price of a stamp at €1, but referring to two different products, was misleading and contravened Section 4.1 of the Code.
Complaint 2 – Brochure Advertising:
Savings Claim: An Post considered that the leaflet was misleading as it had referred to savings made as “Save 21%”, “up to 20%” and “up to 21%”, therefore the saving was unclear.
An Post said that they offered a range of services at different price points and that there was a difference between the price of a stamp and a franked mail item. They said that a stamped letter cost €1 while a franked letter cost 90c and could cost as little as 60c, depending on the volume and service level the customer chooses. They considered that CityPost were continually citing the headline stamp price and were basing their discount claim on this price, thereby ignoring the fact that many businesses used metered/franked mail. They believed that this was a fundamentally misleading discount claim.
Price Comparisons: An Post considered that the price comparison claims on page 7 of the brochure were misleading as the CityPOST collection rate was being compared against the least favourable An Post rate (€1 stamped mail). They again referred to the differences between the price of a stamp and a franked mail item and how they offered a range of services and that franked mail started at 90c going down to 60c for bulked mail. They also referred to the rates for Zones 2/3 & 4 for bulked mail that was priced for 100g items from €1.05 to the US or €1.01 to the UK. They believed that CityPOST were misleading by omission.
They also considered that the CityPost collections rates details on page 8 of the brochure was misleading as An Post’s least favourable rates (standard rates) were being used in the comparison. They said that, depending on the volume and service level the customer chooses to exercise, rates of €2.93 (for up to 100g), €3.76 (for up to 250g), €4.89 (for up to 500g) and €7.29 (for up to 1Kg) were available whereas CityPost had chosen An Post’s standard rates only.
VAT: An Post objected to the fact that CityPOST compared their products, which include VAT, with An Post’s products, of which 90% do not attract vat. They noted that VAT was referred to in the notes section of the page but had not been referred to in the tables and was therefore not a fair comparison.
Service Level: An Post said that theirs and CityPOST were not the same services. They said that they had a 98% next day service level result for post in 2017, while CityPOST have published results that they typically have a three to four day delivery. They said that they were therefore comparing prices of two different service offerings and this had not been stated within the advertising leaflet.
Tracking: An Post objected to the reference by CityPOST of tracking their post with a unique barcode. They said that this gave a misleading impression of the tracking capabilities as the mail was injected into the An Post system and this could not be tracked.
Mail Handling: An Post referred to the claim by CityPOST that international mail was handed over to national postal providers globally in less than 10 hours from leaving their mail centre. They believed that this was an exaggeration and did not believe that CityPOST could get mail landed in America with the United States Parcel Service in less than 10 hours.
An Post said that they appreciated that pricing in their market could be complex, due to the parameters involved such as weight, size, destination and service level. They said that because of this complexity, it behoved all those operating in the market to make fair and consistent claims and comparisons. They considered that CityPOST had sought to use complexity to confuse and had drawn unfair comparisons that were misleading on prce and service.
Response
The advertiser responded to the two complaints from An Post.
Complaint 1 – Radio Advertising
CityPOST stated that the sentences were two distinct statements. They said that they were very clear that the price they referred to was the price of a stamp and that they had not stated that the price of a stamp or a frank was €1. They did not consider that a reasonable person would find fault with the advertisement.
Complaint 2 – Brochure Advertising
Savings Claim: CityPOST said that they had made a typographical error and the correct discount was ‘up to 21%’. They said that the discount varied subject to terms and conditions and that an asterisk had been included beside all saving amount claims in the brochure, stating “subject to terms and conditions, coverage and minimum pickup volumes. VAT is chargeable on non-universal service delivery”. They said that as discount was listed as up to the highest amount, there was no loss to the consumer.
Price Comparison: CityPOST noted that An Post appeared to want them to quote all of their prices within the brochure, however, they did not believe that the Code required them to do this, nor would An Post be required to do the same. They said that they had drawn comparison between CityPOST tariffs and the headline An Post rate.
VAT: CityPOST said that they had specifically made reference to the fact that VAT applied and no attempt had been made to mislead.
Service Level: CityPOST said that they specifically outline their service terms in the brochure and they made no attempt to hide or be misleading in regards to their service terms. They referred to An Post’s claim of a next day service level of 98% and how this rate was not straightforward and was subject to a number of conditions. They referred to a ComReg press release regarding their report on the next day delivery performance of An Post for 2016 which showed that their next day delivery performance was at 91%, and that 99.5% of An Post mail was delivered within three working days.
Tracking: CityPOST said that they apply a barcode on each letter processed through their service and this was traceable within their network. They accepted that the mail was not traceable once it was injected within the An Post network, however, they said that this claim had not been made in any of their advertising.
Mail Handling: CityPOST said that similarly to most postal providers, they hand off mail to a universal service provider who has a global access agreement to all other national postal providers. They said that their injection into national postage providers was comparable to any other service provider. They accept that there was an error on their part in the brochure and they were amending their information guide to reflect this.
They said that they are happy to engage with any customer and that they have a customer service team in place specifically to do this. They said that they were selling a service to postal customers; that is customers who are using the postal service and are currently being charged a price for that service and are aware of what that price is, particularly if it was different to €1. They did not believe that it was their responsibility to include all of An Post’s pricing in their advertising, nor did they have a responsibility to publish their prices. As acknowledged by An Post, they said that the level of complexity involved meant that in order to do so would mean publishing volumes of material.
Further Information:
The advertisers offered further comments and challenged whether the brochure was advertising. They said that by its nature advertising was on an unsolicited communication, whereas they provided the product brochure on request.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld In Part.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. They noted that the postal market was a complex one, and that pricing influenced by, inter alia, volume. They advised the advertisers that brochures, irrespective of whether they were solicited or unsolicited, were marketing communications for the purposes of the Code.
Complaint 1 – Radio Advertising:
The Committee noted that the complainant had accepted that the two sentences in isolation were accurate. The Committee considered, however, that there was an assumption by the advertisers that all consumers would be familiar with the various methods of postage and their pricing and this may not be the case in all instances. In the circumstances the Committee considered that the radio advertisement could exploit the lack of knowledge of consumers and was therefore, likely to mislead such consumers and was in breach of Sections 4.1 and 4.4 of the Code.
Complaint 2 – Brochure Advertising:
Savings Claim: The Committee noted that two pages within the brochure had an incorrect savings claim due to a typographical error. While the Committee noted the advertisers’ claim that an asterisk had been included beside all savings amount claims to the qualifying information, they noted that on page 2 of the brochure, the saving amount itself had not been asterisked. The sentence which contained the saving claim was asterisked to the statement “subject to coverage and minimum volume requirement” which was not the qualifying information referred to.
The Committee considered that the three different savings claims could be misleading to consumers and therefore they considered that this element of the complaint was in breach of Sections 4.1 and 4.4 of the Code.
Price Comparison: In regards to the Collection Rates comparison table, the Committee noted that notes were provided at the end of the page which clarified that the comparison was based on An Post’s standard postal rates. While the Committee noted that the advertisers had only compared their rates to the standard postal rates, i.e. An Post’s ‘least favourable rates’, they did not consider that the Code required the comparison to be made against all An Post postal rates.
In the circumstances the Committee did not consider that the price comparison was misleading.
VAT: The Committee noted that the advertisers had not included VAT in their advertised prices. They also noted that the savings claims were asterisked to a notification that VAT was chargeable on non-universal service deliveries, that is, deliveries made by the advertisers themselves. As there was no indication within the brochure as to when deliveries would be made by the advertisers, incurring VAT, or when they would be injected into the national postal provider’s service, not incurring VAT, there was no way for a consumer to know in advance whether VAT was chargeable or not on their post.
In view of this, the Committee considered that the VAT inclusive price should have been quoted in the brochure with an indication that post delivered by the national postal service was not subject to VAT. In the circumstances the Committee considered that the exclusion of VAT was in breach of Section 4.23 of the Code.
Service Level: The Committee noted that the complainant considered that, due to the difference in their service level offerings, it was not possible to make a comparison fairly. The Committee noted that the advertisers had referred to their service terms and that they offered a three to four day delivery, while the complainant advertised a 98% next day delivery service. The Committee also noted the results of ComReg’s report on the next day delivery performance of the complainant, at 91% with a further 8% of their deliveries were made within three days.
In the light of this result the Committee did not consider that the two service offerings were comparable and in the circumstances the Committee considered that the comparison of the advertiser’s service against the complainant’s was misleading and was in breach of Sections 4.1 and 4.4 of the Code.
Tracking: The Committee noted the claim and considered that the implication made was that all mail could be tracked, irrespective of whether it was delivered by the advertisers or the complainant.
The Committee considered that the claim was in breach of Sections 4.1, 4.4, 4.9 and 4.10 of the Code.
Mail Handling: The Committee noted that the claim referred to handing over international mail to national postal providers globally in less than 10 hours from leaving their mail centre and that the advertisers had referred to an error being made, however, they had not identified what that error was. The Committee considered that substantiation for the claim had not been provided.
While the Committee noted that the advertisers were amending their brochure, they considered that the current version of the brochure was misleading and was in breach of Sections 4.1 and 4.4 of the Code.
Action Required:
Radio Advertising:
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form.
Brochure Advertising:
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form.
