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- RSAWeb promised R1 000 in credit when swapping to their services from another internet service provider.
- But there was a catch which meant certain customers were excluded from the deal.
- The advertisement was reported to the Advertising Regulatory Board.
- For more stories, visit the Tech and Trends homepage.
Marketing material from one of South Africa’s largest internet service providers (ISPs), RSAWeb, has been deemed to be misleading by the South African Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB).
The advertisement, which appeared on Facebook, said customers who switched from any ISP to RSAWeb would receive R1 000 credit in their account for making the switch.
It read: "Switch from any ISP to RSAWEB and get up to R1 000 credit on your account. Get Fibre Internet today!"
But when the complainant, Aubrey Larkins, tried to claim the deal after switching from Rain to RSAWeb, he was told he was not eligible for the offer as he did not have a fibre package with Rain and the deal was only available for fibre-to-fibre transfers.
Larkins said that the advertising material made no mention of this caveat, or any other terms and conditions. He said that the conditions “blatantly contradicts” the online marketing.
Since the advertiser did not provide any comment on the case, the ARB had to use information in the public domain and from the complainant to make its ruling.
The ARB said it could not find any terms and conditions on the RSAWeb website that explained restrictions to the R1 000 deal or that relate to the offer.
News24 did find terms and conditions on the website that relate to the switch promotion.
However, the conditions do not explicitly state that the previous order had to be a fibre order:
It is not clear whether the condition was added to their site following the ruling by the ARB.
The ARB found that the advertisement was misleading as there was no indication on the advertisement that the promotion only applied to customers who previously had a fibre connection.
RSAWeb is not a member of the ARB, which means that the ARB cannot force the company to change the advertisement or take it down.
But in a written response to media after the ARB ruling, Wendy-Anne Bailey, the business unit head of consumer and SME at RSAWeb, said that the company was taking the ARBs findings into consideration and were making changes to make sure these misunderstandings did not occur in the future.
“We have paused the campaign that caused the ambiguity to make the required amendments to ensure that the terms and conditions are clear and easily understood by our customers,” said Bailey.
She said that RSAWeb offered the "switch campaign" to customers who were previously connected by fibre as fibre providers charge a reduced rate for reconnecting a previously installed fibre line.
As a gesture of goodwill, RSAWeb will be offering the R1 000 to the customer who laid the complaint, even though they do not technically qualify, said Bailey.
