I contacted ASA lat week about the call charges in the Sun re 0845,bottom left of the picture, for the benefit of anyone who cannot make out the offending text,( my computer blurs it), this is what it says;-
"Calls from landlines charged at local rate, mobiles charged at normal rates"

This is the ASAs response;-


YOUR COMPLAINT ABOUT THE SUN

Thank you for your recent complaint about the TV magazine with the above newspaper.

Unfortunately we are unable to investigate your complaint about the cost of 0845 numbers further, as the item concerned is not classed as advertising for the purposes of our Code. It forms part of the editorial content of the magazine and as such does not fall with our remit.

You may wish to contact your local Trading Standards department to see if they can offer you further advice. You could also contact The Sun directly to raise your concerns.
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Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your views and I am sorry we cannot help you further. Our website www.asa.orq.uk contains information about the work we do, including the results of our recent investigations into other complaints.
     
Yours sincerely
Laura Edwards Complaints Executive



http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg207/goldaire/2ndJanuary.jpg

At the same time I complained about the above, i also complained about Granadas Careline pricing;-

"Whilst I am on I also wish to complain about Granada TV who are currently running their "Careline" advert, where they clearly state on screen calls to the 0845 6065678 number are charged at "local rate" from a BT landline, they are not, when this advert runs after 6 p.m the cost of a call from a BT landline to any number beginning 01/02 costs 4.5p for up to 1 hour, the same call,(for 1 hour), to an 0845 number would cost 30 pence, a 555% premium on top of an 01/02 call!!"

I have now received a response as follows;-

                                                                                                                    21st January
YOUR COMPLAINT ABOUT CARELINE                                                


Thank you for your patience whilst we have looked into your complaint about a television advertisement for the above charity. I understand that you object to the pricing information for the 0845 number in the ad, as you feel it did not make clear that the price would be more expensive after 6pm.

We have assessed the ad and been in contact with ITV about it. On this occasion, we consider there are insufficient grounds for further ASA intervention. For broadcast ads, there is currently no requirement to include call pricing information at all. ITV chose to include some pricing information after consulting with Ofcom about which wording would be best to use. There is disagreement between the OFT and Ofcom about the need for detailed price information in broadcast ads and, at the present time, we have no requirement for advertisers to include it.

We have brought the matter to the attention of the advertiser and, as the ad only runs over a few days each Christmas, told them to check the pricing requirements again prior to the next campaign.

Thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention.

Yours sincerely


Laura Edwards Complaints Executive

derrick wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2008 at 11:20am:

There is disagreement between the OFT and Ofcom about the need for detailed price information in broadcast ads

That's the first time I have ever seen that said about the OFT.  Are we to take it that the OFT has finally decided that Ofcom is such a pathetic and useless failure at protecting the UK citizen consumer that it might now have to get off its bat fat overpaid corporate backside and do something about it?