The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform are introducing new regulations to clamp down on unfair sales and marketing practices. They are designed to protect consumers and honest businesses. Everyone who deals with consumers will be affected including retailers, builders and second-hand motor traders.

You can read the kbbreview analysis of these new laws here

Many detailed rules around trade descriptions and misleading price indications are being replaced with a general ban on unfair trading. This broadly means traders will have to act in a way that enables the average consumer to make free and informed purchasing decisions.

The definitions used in this section are taken from the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Guidance document, published March 2008.

The following practices are banned outright:

Falsely claiming accreditation

1. Faking credentials

Claiming to be a signatory to a code of conduct when the trader is not.

2. You’re not who you say you are

Displaying a trust mark, quality mark or equivalent without having obtained the necessary authorisation.

3. Your endorsement is not real

Claiming that a code of conduct has an endorsement from a public or other body which it does not have.

4. Not being true to the terms of the endorsement

Claiming that a trader (including his/her commercial practices) or a product has been approved, endorsed
or authorised by a public or private body when he/she/it has not, or making such a claim without complying with
the terms of the approval, endorsement or authorisation.

e.g.A builder claims that he is registered under the ‘TrustMark’ scheme when he is not. This would breach the regulations.

TrustMark is a scheme which helps consumers find reliable,and trustworthy tradesmen to undertake home repairs
and improvements.

Pricing and product/service information

5. Special offer – not in stock

Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price, without disclosing the existence of any reasonable
grounds the trader may have for believing that he/she will not be able to offer for supply or to procure another
trader to supply, those products or equivalent products at that price for a period that is, and in quantities that are,reasonable having regard to the product, the scale of advertising of the product and the price offered. This is known as bait advertising.

6. Limited time only

Falsely stating that a product will only be available for a very limited time, or that it will only be available on particular terms for a very limited time, in order to elicit an immediate decision and deprive consumers of sufficient opportunity or time to make an informed choice.

7. Illegally selling goods

Stating or otherwise creating the impression that a product can legally be sold when it cannot.

8. It’s not right

Presenting rights given to consumers in law as a distinctive feature of the trader’s offer.

9. Over promise, under deliver

Falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, disfunction or malformations.

10. Promoting a product you don’t want to sell

Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price and then:

(a) Refusing to show the advertised item to consumers

(b) Refusing to take orders for it or deliver it within a reasonable time

(c) Demonstrating a defective sample of it, with the intention of promoting a different product (known
as bait and switch).

11. Scare tactics

Making a materially inaccurate claim concerning the nature and extent of the risk to the personal security of the
consumer or his or her family if the consumer does not purchase the product.

12. Creating extra paperwork

Requiring a consumer who wishes to claim on an insurance policy to produce documents which could not reasonably be considered relevant as to whether the claim was valid, or failing systematically to respond to pertinent correspondence, in order to dissuade a consumer from exercising his/her contractual rights.

Promotional activities

13. Being honest about advertorials

Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion (advertorial)
without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer.

14. Faking goods

Promoting a product similar to a product made by a particular manufacturer in such a manner as deliberately
to mislead the consumer into believing that the product is made by that same manufacturer when it is not.

e.g A trader designs the packaging of shampoo ‘A’ so that it very closely resembles that of shampoo ‘B’,
an established brand of a competitor. If the similarity was introduced to deliberately mislead consumers
into believing that shampoo ‘A’ is made by the competitor (who owns shampoo ‘B’) – this would breach the regulations.

15. Closing down sale

Claiming that the trader is about to cease trading or move premises when he/she is not.

16. Pulling the wool over their eyes

Passing on materially inaccurate information on market conditions or on the possibility of finding the product
with the intention of inducing the consumer to acquire the product at conditions less favourable than normal market conditions.

17. Forcing the deal

Including in marketing material an invoice or similar document seeking payment which gives the consumer the
impression that he/she has already ordered the marketed product when he/she has not.

18. A wolf in sheep’s clothing

Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his/her trade,
business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer.

19. Advertising to children

Including in an advertisement a direct exhortation to children to buy advertised products or persuade their parents to.

Competition and prize draws

20. Pyramid schemes

Establishing, operating or promoting a pyramid promotional scheme where a consumer gives consideration for the opportunity to receive compensation that is derived primarily from the introduction of other consumers into
the scheme, rather than from the sale or consumption of products.

21. You can’t promise a win

Claiming that products are able to facilitate winning in games of chance.

22. Winner takes nothing

Claiming in a commercial practice to offer a competition or prize promotion without awarding the prizes described
or a reasonable equivalent.

23. Is it truly free?

Describing a product as ‘gratis’, ‘free’, ‘without charge’ or similar if the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of responding to the commercial practice and collecting or paying for delivery of the item.

24. No win situations

Creating the false impression that the consumer has already won, will win, or will on doing a particular act win, a prize or other equivalent benefit, when in fact either:

There is no prize or other equivalent benefit,

Or – Taking any action in relation to claiming the prize or other equivalent benefit is subject to the consumer
paying money or incurring a cost.

Sales and After Sales Service

25. Forcing the sale

Creating the impression that the consumer cannot leave the premises until a contract is formed.

26. Overstaying your welcome

Conducting personal visits to the consumer’s home and ignoring the consumer’s request to leave or not to return,
except in circumstances and to the extent justified, under national law, to enforce a contractual obligation.

e.g. A door to door salesman visits a consumer to sell her some cleaning products. She tells him she is not interested and asks him to leave. He is determined to try and get her to change her mind and continues his sales pitch on her doorstep. This would breach the regulations.

27. Pestering the consumer

Making persistent and unwanted solicitations by telephone, fax, e-mail or other remote media except in circumstances and to the extent justified under national law to enforce a contractual obligation.

28. Using guilt to make sales

Explicitly informing a consumer that if he or she does not buy the product or service, the trader’s job or livelihood will be in jeopardy.

29. Asking for payment when they didn’t ask for the product

Demanding immediate or deferred payment for, or the return or safekeeping of products supplied by the trader,
but not solicited by the consumer except where the product is a substitute supplied in accordance with regulation 19(7) of the Consumer Protection (distance selling) Regulations 2000 (this is known as inertia selling).

30. Talking the same language

Undertaking to provide after-sales service to consumers with whom the trader has communicated prior to a transaction in a language which is not an official language of the European Member State where the trader is located, and then making such service available only in anotherlanguage without clearly disclosing this to the consumer before the consumer is committed to the transaction.

e.g A trader based in the UK agrees to provide after sales service to a consumer he or she has been communicating with in German. The trader then provides after sales services only in English, without warning the consumer pre-contract that that would be the case. This would breach the regulations.

31. Misleading after-sales information

Creating the false impression that after-sales service in relation to a product is available in a European Member
State other than the one in which the product is sold.