ScotRail Adverts Ruled Misleading by Advertising Watchdog

ScotRail has been criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over claims on its website suggesting passengers could secure the “cheapest tickets” by booking directly with the operator. The ASA ruled that the adverts, which described fares as “unbeatable on price” and encouraged customers to “book direct for the best price,” were misleading.

The complaint related to promotions displayed on ScotRail’s journey planner in August. The watchdog determined that the rail operator did not hold sufficient evidence to substantiate claims that customers would always obtain the lowest available fares through its website. Following the ruling, ScotRail confirmed that the wording on its site has been amended.

An ASA statement explained:

“The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claims ‘get cheapest tickets’ and ‘unbeatable on price’ to mean that, by using ScotRail’s journey planner, they would be able to purchase tickets at the lowest available price for their chosen journey. We also considered the claims implied it was unnecessary to look for cheaper tickets elsewhere, and that the additional claim, ‘book direct for our best price’, added to the impression that ScotRail’s prices could not be beaten. We considered that those were ‘lowest price’ (or ‘best price’) claims. As such, they had to be backed up by suitable evidence to show that ScotRail would always beat, and not merely match, competitors’ prices. We considered that rail ticketing was complex, and most consumers were unlikely to have knowledge of the rules which governed how ticket prices were set. Overall, consumers were likely to understand that ScotRail was able to offer competitively priced tickets, which it did by monitoring its fares against its competitors, including third-party retailers. We therefore expected ScotRail to hold evidence to substantiate the claims ‘get cheapest tickets’, ‘book direct for our best price’ and ‘unbeatable on price’. We welcomed the changes ScotRail had made to their wording of parts of their website. However, because we had seen no evidence to demonstrate that consumers could obtain the lowest available price by booking directly with ScotRail, we concluded that the ad was misleading.”

A ScotRail spokesperson said:

“Our aim is always to provide clear, accurate information to customers, and we regret that the website messages did not fully reflect the ASA’s requirements.”

Image: ScotRail