Sure mobile slams ‘misleading
advertising’
27th September 2006
Sure mobile has accused Jersey Telecom of
deliberately seeking to mislead consumers through its
advertising.
On Friday 22nd September and Monday 25th
September Jersey Telecom published adverts in the Jersey Evening
Post claiming its Pay Monthly My Mobile charges are better value
than those of Sure mobile. The company repeats those claims on its
web site.
David Smith, the Chief Executive of Cable &
Wireless Jersey, commented:
“These price comparisons are at best ludicrous
and at worst deliberately misleading. Sure mobile has become the
champion of better value mobile, for both Pay As You Go and Pay
Monthly customers. We believe that the way to react to that is for
Jersey Telecom to improve their prices, not massage the
information.”
The advert appears to be a comparison of the
£9.99 My Mobile tariff
(http://www.jerseytelecom.com/templates/LayoutB.aspx?id=656)
and the Sure 120 tariff, which costs £12.50 per month
(http://www.surecw.com/mobile/page-479). It quotes call charges of
3p per minute on My Mobile versus 10p per minute on Sure mobile and
texts from 3p from Jersey Telecom versus 4p from Cable &
Wireless.
Sure mobile believes that the advert is
misleading for consumers because additional monthly commitments are
required to obtain the cheapest prices for calls and text
messages.
For £9.99 per month, Jersey Telecom customers
get 25 free minutes, 25 free texts (domestic landlines and mobiles
only) and then are charged calls from 7p per minute (domestic land
lines and Jersey Telecom mobiles). The Sure 120 monthly
subscription includes 120 free minutes (calls to local landlines,
Sure mobiles and UK landlines), 60 free texts, 5 free picture
messages and free voicemail retrieval, after which calls cost from
10p per minute. Also, Sure mobile customers Carryover any unused
free minutes, texts and picture messages to the following
month.
To get calls at 3p per minute and texts for 3p,
as quoted in the advert, JT My Mobile customers will be committed
to a total monthly subscription of £69.99 for 12 months, not £9.99.
Furthermore this provides a fixed number of 1,000 calls and 1,000
texts. Should the customer use fewer calls or texts in a month then
the value does not equate to 3p.
For example, if a Jersey Telecom My Mobile
customer was on a £69.99 per month tariff, but used only 250
minutes of calls in any one month to domestic landlines or Jersey
Telecom mobiles, the actual value would be 12p per minute.
The cost of texts on Sure mobile is 6p, not 4p.
The advert has published the rate of texts in an out-of-price plan
Text Booster, which provides 75 extra texts for a cost of just £3.
Sure mobile are unhappy that the comparison could mislead its own
customers.
Mr Smith added:
“We are frankly astonished that Jersey Telecom
has chosen to mislead their own customers rather than dig deep into
their pockets and properly compete on price. I encourage customers
to do their own price comparison in order to identify the service
which offers better value.”