Come clean about your sky-high delivery fees, watchdog orders f irms
A WATCHDOG has warned retailers to honour the delivery charges advertised on their websites amid a crackdown on rip-off fees.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has issued an enforcement notice to firms across the UK in an effort to protect customers in the most remote areas who are often hit with surcharges.
It follows a Scottish Daily Mail campaign highlighting concerns that customers in rural Scottish communities were being hit with ‘rip-off’ delivery fees when ordering products from online retailers.
Shoppers north of the Border pay £36million more for deliveries – with some companies adding on charges despite claims of free or lower fees on their website.
The ASA guidance, which has been published by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), means retailers must make any restrictions or exclusions clear to customers and display the real cost of deliveries prominently.
Firms will be required to take immediate action to ensure their advertising complies with the new guidance or face enforcement action, including the possibility of legal action by trading standards.
Any claim of ‘UK delivery’ will now include all parts of the United Kingdom, including the Scottish islands, and surcharges will be banned if such a claim is made.
The announcement comes after Nationalist Moray MSP Richard Lochhead wrote to the ASA and sent it a dossier of 124 firms that had failed to be upfront on charges for delivery to remote areas of Scotland. In many cases ‘free UK delivery’ was advertised but a surcharge was added at the payment stage of online purchases.
He received a response from the watchdog this week confirming that as a result of his campaign it would take action by issuing new guidance and enforcement notices to firms, including those in his dossier.
Mr Lochhead described it as a ‘significant first step in the fight against unfair delivery charges’.
He said: ‘People living across Scotland will be pleased to see companies told to stop advertising free delivery when in many cases, for many customers, the reality is very different.
‘It is now incumbent upon those companies who are failing to be upfront with consumers to sit up, take notice and change their practices.’
He added: ‘Free delivery should mean free delivery – that should apply to folk in Moray as much as it does to customers in Surrey.’
ASA chief executive Guy Parker said: ‘Companies must honour the delivery claims they are making or stop making them.
‘It is simply not fair to mislead people about whether parcels can be delivered to them, or how much it will cost.’
Moray MP Douglas Ross has also campaigned on the issue of rip-off delivery fees, and has had discussions over the issue with his Government colleagues at Westminster.
He said: ‘The new rules will ensure delivery charges are clear and transparent for consumers and I welcome that companies will now face penalties for misleading customers when advertising delivery charges.
‘Although this is another positive step in my campaign for fairer delivery charges, more still needs to be done to end the scandal of this postcode lottery.’
‘It’s not fair to mislead people’