Trading Standards breached?:
Background:
Trading Standards received around 30 complaints regarding a company selling franchise opportunities in the affiliate marketing field. The complaints were that the claims made to the buyers of these sites about potential earnings, hours required to run the sites etc were completely untrue and misleading. Buyers were told that they could expect an estimated minimum annual return of around £50 000. In fact they all failed to earn over £100 per year despite the complainants stating they followed all the training the company provided. They each paid around £5,000 for their affiliate store.
My involvement:
The trading Standards officer investigating the complaint came to my office for a discussion about the case and I give an opinion as to whether the claims were realistic. I looked at the evidence and the fact that the seller could not provide any details of sites they'd sold that were successful.
I looked at a sample of the sites and could see that they had been optimised for SEO but not to a level that would ensure they came up well in the search engines. I agreed with the complainants that they had been badly misled by the seller.
The matter is now back in the hands of Trading Standards who are looking to get a remedy from the seller.