Auctionworld.tv handed £10k fine

The Independent Television Commission has handed Auctionworld.tv a financial penalty of £10,000 for breaching the Advertising Standards and Practice Code.

The fine is related to nineteen specific incidents occuring between May and July 23rd, 2002. These incidents included the delay and non-delivery of items. Therefore the ITC, under the mandate of Rule 36(b)(v) of the ITC code - which states that products offered by mail order or phone orders by credit card, may be advertised only if the advertiser is able to fulfil the order within 28 days bar mitigating circumstances - conducted an investigation into Auctionworld.tv's practices.

The ITC reports that Auctionworld.tv "admitted delays in relation to all 19 complaints, but said that their procedures aimed at detecting suspected fraudulent transactions could cause delays in some customers receiving their goods." They then went on to prove fraud in only five cases, and the ITC says no specific details were provided in relation to any cases.

The decision to fine the channel came because "this was the second time the ITC had intervened in respect of Auctionworld's poor delivery performance, and because the Commission felt that Auctionworld had been less than open in their provision of information to the ITC." The first time the ITC intervened was shortly after Auctionworld.tv launched in November 2001, when the ITC upheld complaints from customers that orders had not arrived within the advertised delivery period. Auctionworld.tv was warned at the time that future breaches would be met with a formal sanction.

Had Auctionworld.tv's performance not "improved considerably" in the time since the complaints were upheld, the ITC indicated that the financial penalty would have been much higher.