The promotion was found on Hertz's website by clicking a button on an airline's site. Headed "UK £1 Offer" it claimed, "Hire a car in the UK from as little £1 [sic] plus Location Service Charge. You pay the Location Service Charge* and we will rent you a car for just £1**".
The single asterisk was linked to text that stated: "Location Service Charge £25.85/€37.36 including VAT". The double asterisk was linked to text that stated: "Terms and Conditions apply". The terms and conditions were listed below.
The complaint did not come from either a rival or a member of the public; rather, the ad was spotted by the CAP Compliance team which complained to the ASA. CAP is the Committee of Advertising Practice, which writes the rule book enforced by the ASA, the CAP Code.
The Compliance team objected that the quoted price of £1 on the promoter's website was misleading because the Location Service Charge, a known, fixed and non-optional charge, was not included. The CAP Code says: "No marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise."
The ASA upheld the complaint. Hertz argued that the offer was not misleading because the promotion included all the relevant information and that customers had all the relevant information before they were invited to start the booking process.
But the ASA considered that the headline claim "UK £1 Offer" implied that consumers were being offered something for £1. Because the promotion required consumers to spend a minimum of £26.85, it considered that the headline claim exaggerated the benefit to consumers.
The ASA asked Hertz to ensure that in future similar promotions they quoted prices that included known, fixed and non-optional charges.
