ASA Rules a '24/7' Website Claim Wasn't Misleading
The Advertising Standards Authority ruled on 16 September that a trade website's "24/7" promise held up against a formal complaint from a rival firm. A rare, tested answer to a question most business owners just have to guess at. The ASA's published ruling sets out exactly what a "24/7" claim has to prove if it's ever challenged.
Wefix London, a rival plumbing firm, complained that Pimlico Plumbers' website claim of "24 HRS & EMERGENCIES", plus a promise that its call centre was always open to help with any property enquiry or emergency at any time, day or night, wasn't backed up by what actually happened overnight. Pimlico supplied a full year of its own call and job data, June 2025 to May 2026, to answer that.
The figures showed calls between 11pm and 7am made up no more than 3% of the total, and most of those callers wanted a next-day appointment rather than someone at the door within the hour. Even so, the job records showed engineers had been booked in for every single hour between midnight and 8am across the year. The ASA decided a reasonable customer reading "24/7" would expect a business to run with fewer engineers overnight, when demand is much lower, not a full crew sitting idle for every possible call. The complaint was not upheld.
The lesson here isn't really about plumbing. It's about what backs up a claim once someone challenges it. Say "24/7" or "always open" on your own website if it's true, and keep the evidence behind it: calls actually answered, the odd job actually booked overnight. That's what got Pimlico through this complaint, not the wording on the page.
ASA complaints don't only come from unhappy customers, either. This one came from a rival firm, which happens often enough in trades where everyone watches everyone else's marketing. The same care over evidence applies to any bold claim on a homepage: our guide to what a website can and can't claim covers the ASA's rules on superlatives and reviews, and our guides cover the wider legal footing a small business site needs to stand on.