How can advertising attract employees of the Federal Antimonopoly Service instead of customers and how can you minimize the risks of this?

18 November 2024

We will share with you information about risks minimization of advertising on different services, and avoidance questions from the Federal Antimonopoly Service about your advertising.

According to statistics, only one out of four advertising cases does not end with a fine. The main reasons for such fines are spam mailings and calls.

If a subscriber did not give prior consent to the mailing, but he received such an advertising message, the fine for such a thing can reach up to 1 million rubles. Similar fines are applied for spam calls.

Our recommendations to reduce the risk of claims from the FAS authorities:

  1. Request the full name of the person in the questionnaire;
  2. Add a phone number or email, and do not forget to verify them, for example, by sending a code;
  3. Make a separate document on consent to advertising, rather than doing it in a consumer contract.

Also, it is important to pay attention to financial services advertising. FAS looks at the words in the advertisement, so, even if you are not related to credit, financial and other organizations related to this activity, we advise you to follow the recommendations:

  • do not mention in advertising the phrases: credit, installment, loan, at interest, etc;
  • if you mention the interest rate of a loan, it is worth mentioning the full cost of the loan;
  • when using the word “credit”, do not forget to check it for compliance with Article 28 of theLaw about Advertising.

If a company does not cheat citizens in its advertising, the Federal Antimonopoly Service may still recognize the advertisement as inaccurate. This may be based on the omission of essential conditions. Even if you make a disclaimer with detailed conditions, it may not be enough to avoid negative consequences.

An example from court practice:

“Cashback on everything... and on many other things forever, everywhere and anywhere” - this was the text in Raiffeisenbank's commercial. In addition, the phrase “cashback on everything without conditions and restrictions” was also heard in the commercial. Despite the fact that the commercial showed disclaimers about debit card restrictions, FAS still recognized the advertisement as improper.

FAS ruled that the font of the disclaimer was too small and was only on the screen for a few seconds, which was the basis for FAS to order the company to stop distributing this advertisement and fined the organization.

In this case, FAS required a counter-advertisement to refute the previous one, and the Court upheld such an initiative of FAS. Therefore, the practice on this issue is controversial and diverse, but it is always important to approach any advertising carefully and responsibly.

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