Fresh Start Living warned by ASA

FRESH Start Living, the Salford-based company which specialises in selling student properties, has been warned by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) about the content of a web advert.

The company had placed an advertisement on a website containing text which stated that “We are currently selling an average of 1 property every two hours, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week”.

A complaint was lodged with the ASA that the ad was misleading and could not be substantiated.

Fresh Start Living Ltd replied to the authority with a screenshot of its logging database that recorded dates of exchange. It claimed that the screenshot showed it had sold 360 property units in June 2011.

However, the ASA noted that the screenshot only showed a total of seven exchanges, and a series of numbers in brackets beside a few dates in June that added up to 360.

It said that this was not suitable evidence that Fresh Start had sold the 360 properties in July and ordered the company not to repeat the claim in its current form again.

In September, the company said that it had appointed consultants Holland Bendelow to advise on a flotation to the Stock Exchange.

In a statement, the company said that it “did not intend to mislead with the copy line on the company’s own website.

“We were simply keen to communicate our highly impressive rate of sales, in particular that we sold 360 units in June alone.”

It added that it was not given the opportunity to provide the full evidence which led to its claim, and welcomed changes to advertising standards’ rules which will in future prevent complaints from being made anonymously.

“Fresh Start Living has sold 1,400 properties since the start of our financial year in April and is on target to sell 2,000 by the end of our financial year 2011-12,” it added.