Ban for BT adverts offering 'free' YouView box

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned an advert for BT's television service that claimed to offer customers a "free" YouView box worth £299.



The company also demanded customers sign up for a contract, paying £5 for television channels and £15.45 a month for phone line rental. It also applied a £49 "activation charge" for customers who were new to its TV service.

The ASA said the adverts would have been acceptable if another provider had received the money from the activation charge. Its ruling stated: "We considered that the activation fee was in effect linked to the YouView box and we concluded that the claim that the box was 'free' was misleading."

BT told the ASA that the activation fee "applied to the BT TV service, rather than to the YouView box, and that customers did not have to take the YouView box, which was separate to the calls, broadband and TV packages that customers must take to be eligible for the 'free' box."

Two complaints were upheld while two were rejected.