Currys gets wrist slapped over PC ad

ASA says touted £150 saving advertised for HP Envy laptop was misleading

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has told off Currys after ruling that one of its ads for a laptop was misleading.

An advert on Currys' website on 19 and 20 February touted savings of £150 on an HP Envy laptop it was selling for £649.99.

However, the laptop was originally on sale at a price of £799.99 from 4 to 24 December, before Currys dropped the price once to £699.99 on 25 December, and then again to £649.999 on 4 February.

In the advert, the £649.99 price was written in red, and below that "Save £150.00" was written in black. Smaller grey text below that stated "Was £799.999 (from 04/12/15 to 24/12/15)".

A complainant alerted the ASA in the belief that the advertised discount did not represent a genuine saving, a complaint the ASA upheld.

"We considered consumers would generally understand a claim to 'Save £150.00' to represent a genuine saving against the usual selling price of the product at the time the ad appeared," the ASA stated.

"We noted that the ad included smaller, less prominent text which indicated when the product had been available at the higher price. We considered many consumers were unlikely to notice the smaller grey text."

The model involved was an HP Envy 13-d061-sa 13.3" laptop in aluminium.

As well as ruling that the ad must not appear again in its current form, the ASA told Currys' owner DSG Retail to ensure its future savings claims were not misleading.

It is not the first time an electronics retailer has fallen foul of the ASA in recent times, with Ebuyer having its wrist slapped by the watchdog over the wording of a free delivery offer in 2014.