Auctionworld tops complaint list

ADVERTISING regulators today revealed teleshopping channel Auctionworld, which collapsed leaving 80,000 customers out of pocket, topped the 2004 broadcasting complaints top ten.

The channel, which This is Money and our sister title Financial Mail on Sunday warned consumers about for three years, attracted 1,360 complaints mainly about delays in the delivery of ordered goods, misleading guide prices and poor customer service.

Government media watchdog Ofcom not only upheld the advertising complaints, but also imposed a record fine of £450,000 on the company.

Ofcom said Auctionworld's 'grave breaches of the code' had resulted in 'demonstrable harm to consumers, and prejudice to the teleshopping sector as a whole'. Its investigation found the channel giving a guide price of £19,360 for diamonds that were worth £3,580.

The channel's licence was revoked and Auctionworld has not broadcast since November. It could not pay the fine and accountants PKF were appointed as administrators as the company collapsed owing around £12m to thousands of angry customers.

Auctionworld was a problem for TV regulators almost since its launch in 2001. It breached TV codes of conduct on at least seven occasions, and in 2003 it was fined £10,000 by Ofcom's predecessor, the Independent Television Commission.

It wasn't just the items Auctionworld sold that made the headlines. Presenter Liz Fuller, an ex-Miss Great Britain famously dumped her TV celebrity boyfriend Paul McKenna live on air. The former model sent a text message to the TV hypnotist to tell him to watch the show. When he tuned in she was involved in an auction for engagement rings and turned to camera and said: 'Going, going, gone - like you, Paul.'

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Administrators PFK said today that they have sold part of the business on to an American television network, although it is legally bound not to name the company. It also selling off some remaining jewellery. The company's failure left 80,000 people out of pocket ? 60,000 of those, who paid between £100 and £30,000 for goods with a credit card, will be reimbursed by their card provider.

The ASA took over regulation of broadcast adverts only last year. It said the predominant theme in the complaints for broadcast and non-broadcast adverts, such as billboards and newspaper adverts, was religious offence.

The two most complained about non-broadcast advertisements were a Channel 4 poster for the programme Shameless, which depicted a drunken family scene styled on the Leonardo Da Vinci painting of the Last Supper and a poster by Schering Health Care advertising the morning-after pill, Levonelle, beneath the headline 'Immaculate Conception'.

The second most complained about broadcast commercial was for Mr Kipling cakes. It featured a nativity play with a real-life birth.

Complaints for Auctionworld made up more than 40% of the total for all ads featured in both the top ten lists. To see the full lists, click on the link below.