ASA acts to protect homeworkers

15 October 2004

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has asked the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to consider taking legal action against Neath Mailing Services, a company that specialises in recruiting homeworkers, under the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations (1988). Neath Mailing Services also trades under the name Delta Data Services.

The ASA first received complaints about Neath Mailing Services in June 1999 following the publication of regional press advertisements that claimed that home workers could earn £130 per hundred envelopes that they addressed and mailed. The advertisers did not provide evidence that satisfied the ASA Council that they offered regular work to respondents or that most of their agents earned the quoted amounts.

Despite the advertisers giving the Authority their assurance that they would not repeat the advertisements, the ASA continued to receive complaints concerning the publication of the same misleading claims on several occasions up to a year after the ASA had published its ruling against them.

A further upheld adjudication against Neath Mailing Services was published in January 2002 following an investigation where the advertisers were unable to provide substantiation that they provided a "no quibble guarantee" as they claimed in their mailings.

Delta Data Services distributed mailings similar to those sent by Neath Mailing Services, in which they made unsubstantiated claims as to the amounts of money that home workers could earn. Some complainants had also expressed concern that not enough information describing the type of work that they would be sent had been supplied to respondents.

Commenting on this latest referral to the OFT, the ASA's Director General, Christopher Graham, said: "The CAP Code seeks to ensure that advertisers do not exploit vulnerable groups in society, which all too often includes homeworkers. This company has consistently published unsubstantiated claims calculated to appeal to those seeking to work from home, and then failed to deliver on respondents' expectations. The ASA will resort to its legal backstop power of calling in the OFT if advertisers persist in distributing problematic advertising after our Council has ruled against it."