TalkTalk ISP advertisements banned by ASA for breaking fixed price pledge

The UK Advertising Standards Authority has banned a number of ISP TalkTalk’s broadband packages TV and email adverts. The ban came after the promises of “no mid-contracted rises” on “fixed” price plans were broken with increased prices during the fixed contract period.

The issue focuses on two of TalkTalk’s packages: their Faster Fibre package which was promoted in March 2020 as prices being “fixed until 2022”, and an email advert promoted in January 2020 that stated “No mid-contract rises on your Fixed Price Plan”.

Nine people, who seemingly signed up after seeing the advertisements, complained after being informed that the price of their broadband packages were to increase during the fixed contract period.

TalkTalk countered the ban by blaming the Covid-19 pandemic for increasing data usage beyond their expectations. However, the ASA upheld the complaints.