An online Europcar advert claiming to guarantee the hire of luxury cars has been found to be misleading by the advertising watchdog.
The Advertising Standards Authority investigated after two people complained over the ad in May offering Mercedes, Jaguar, Porsche and BMW vehicles to hire.
They challenged whether the car hire firm’s claim that “the model you choose is the model you get. Guaranteed” was misleading because they understood that Europcar could not guarantee that the chosen model would be available and if it was not, customers would be given a substitute.
Europcar argued that it would be able fulfil the guaranteed model reservation given over 24-hours’ notice if the vehicles booked were available.
But the ASA upheld the complaints and ruled that using the term “guaranteed” would be understood to mean that Europcar had in place processes to ensure the range of vehicles included in the offer would always be available to book.
“We noted that the terms and conditions were clearly displayed on the same web page as that claim and we considered consumers would therefore understand that reservations must be made at least 24 hours in advance in order to take advantage of the offer,” the ASA said in its ruling published today.
“While we understood that Europcar monitored the guaranteed models to help them meet demand, that did not amount to a guarantee of availability and they had been unable to provide the vehicle the complainants had reserved, despite the reservation being made more than 24 hours in advance.
“Because ‘guaranteed models’ would not always be available to those who booked, we concluded that the claim was likely to mislead.”