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Npower rapped over ‘free’ price fix ads
Wednesday 10th September 2008, 8:15AM BST.
The UK advertising watchdog has rapped npower over adverts stating customers could fix their energy bills for free.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found the adverts for energy provider were misleading as while taking up the service for of capped bills was free, the rates on the fixed tariff were higher.
The adverts stated: “Now existing npower customers can fix their energy prices at no extra cost … for free until April 2009.”
A further advertisement stated: “Our customers can fix for free… We’re offering all existing n-power customers the chance to fix energy prices until 31st March 2009 without paying a premium.”
The ASA ruled: “Because not all existing customers could fix their prices ‘for free’ (as the additional cost of switching to a higher tariff would be incurred by some) we considered that the ads were misleading.”
Npower was also criticised for not making it clear not all customers could qualify for the rate fixes.
The energy provider, however, maintained the words “fix for free” carried the clear meaning that there was no additional charge for fixing prices.
As a result of the ruling npower was forced to pull the ads and not show them again.
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Of course, existing Npower customers at the time they were offered “fix for free” could have moved to another provider and fixed for much longer so we’ve now missed out on this! What compensation is available I wonder?
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