Part 2: MN misrepresentation in recommendations: a depressing blend of abject amateurism and outright greed

So MN are having a fresh stab at this:

Mumsnet picks: what we're loving in May

The original quote that opened up this can of world was eight years old, would you expect them still to be diving back four years to provide MNer quotes for ads? See the Aspinall Mayfair bag ad, attached.

And a very tenuous 'recommendation' for a DM sandal.

https://www.mumsnet.com/articles/mumsnet-picks-may

Damn! Too late to edit! But please, in particular @Wondermoomin , do send any more original links you have and I will send the reply to the ASA tomorrow.

Yes! I have had a reply from the ASA.

Dear [weirdoboelady]

ASA Complaint ref: A25-1290343 Mumsnet Ltd

Thank you for contacting the Advertising Standards Authority.
We deal with specific complaints about specific ads, with a view of asking advertisers to amend or withdraw ads that are deemed to be in breach of the Code. I appreciate that your complaint is in relation to an ad from Mumsnet Ld but in order to continue with your complaint we need to see a copy of the ad to which you object as we are unable to select content on a complainant’s behalf. We are aware of the thread which showed the issues you have raised, however we would need further information about the relevant ads in order to proceed with our assessment.

Please can you provide us with more information regarding the ad, such as the content that you object to, by sending a screenshot of the webpage (a photo attached to an email will suffice) or a webpage link. Any other details would be helpful.

It would be helpful if you could please get back to me by Thursday 22 May. If I do not hear from you by then, I shall assume that you no longer wish us to pursue your complaint and I shall close our file.

Please be assured that we will always act when a full assessment indicates that the advertising rules have been broken and will let you know if we do intervene. If, after receiving your reply, we decide that our resources need to be directed towards other issues just now, we won’t reply with an outcome or update you further. However, we shall keep a record of your complaint as well as any further comments you submit and take them into account in our regular intelligence gathering sweeps.

Yours sincerely

Cheryl Marasigan
Complaints Executive
asa.org.uk | 020 7492 2205 | [email protected]

_

If anyone feels there is a specific strong example of an ad, I would be grateful to receive it. Otherwise and additionally I will of course also send them a link to this thread.

PS This will not post, for some reason. I suspect it is the links at the end, so will edit these.

Of course not.

Any updates on this?

Yeah that's likely

There may be a reciprocal arrangement with the DM - you can take stories or plant stories but no bad press thanks.

There's quite a lot going on in the world at the moment, and an M&S cyber attack will get more headlines than a cottage industry forum breaking the law ;)

Not a word, and I have had their weekly update for ages. What REALLY bewilders me, though, is why this doesn't seem to have been picked up by any journalists. You'd think the DM (DF) or someone would be all over it! Is is more legally complex than it at first appears?

i called the ASA and it can take up to 28 days for an acknowledgement so I think a longer wait.

It’s not very professional I agree, but then the whole thing is run on a wing and a prayer, hiding behind the ‘oh we’re so busy, it’s so difficult, we’re doing our best’ mantra. Embarrassing really - if they had any shame that is 🤣

But there’s a reason sites like Money Saving Expert and PistonHeads were sold for reasonable amounts of money…they are professionally run on stable techology 🤣 I’m sure Justine would love to have the site valued at the sort of level that MSE was…

It’s understandable though - the forum format is an emerging techology and it’s complicated - it only started 40 years or so years ago so you can’t expect the busy people of MN to be all over it. Especially when they are busy making up reviews 🤣

Not heard back yet but I suspect it will take a while. It's pretty shoddy that MNHQ have just ignored the thread and lots of the questions asked in good faith.

Is @JustineMumsnet or anyone from MNHQ coming back here to engage with questions about this, or has the final word been had?

Has anyone heard back from the ASA?

I was misquoted in one of the emails. I had really liked a product, repurchased and it came in new packaging (tube vs bottle I think) and discussed it in my post. The quote only mentioned the positive part, omitting to mention that the version now available wasn’t as good.
I have clicked into threads via the emails and found that the posts are not as positive as they seem from the emails so I realised it wasn’t just my post that was misrepresented.

I love that "never having had an affair" is held up as some sort of unattainable standard of saintliness, rather than basic human decency 😅

It wasn't a mistake. Other posters have shown evidence that MN has been misusing quotes for false advertising for years. I'm amazed so many people believed those quotes. It's a business - they don't care about their users, they just want to make money.

Might have been helpful to read both threads so that you understood the issues before diving in. Then you might not have looked so silly 🤣🤣

Mumsnet really is run in an amateur way isn’t it 🤣🤣

Very interesting 🧐

Careful guys, I criticised the appearance of a couple of known Mumsnet defenders and got a 'Mumsnet Calling' email

For future updates, maybe imagine you are posting to a bunch of intelligent, informed, cynical, disappointed and very pissed off grown ups, many of whom are lawyers or work in marketing / advertising / promotions. Pretend you give a shit about your users and try to hide the fact that you think they’re morons. Ask yourself - am I about to make a tit of myself here? It’s actually toe curling, how badly this is being handled.

It's baffling isn't it, @NormaMajors1992coat? MN blatantly treats its members like mushrooms: keeps us in the dark for as long as possible and feeds us shit.

This thread is in active now but the previous one wasn't when it was being regularly posted on

Not surprisingly both things can be true

If they were that bright they wouldn’t have gone down the path they did… ;)

Well they're very silly if they think they can just edit the posts and hope that's enough... They SURELY understand that people have actual copies and there's an internet archive...

I know, I find it baffling that anyone is leaping to their defence.

It's one thing to just not care about Mr-wormword-car -salesman levels of trickery. We all have different values.

But I can't imagine anyone other than perhaps a MN staffer themselves thinking there's anything defensible about this

What have stepmums, bitter men and TRAs got to do with anything?

It’s ok to object to illegal and deceptive practices you know - there isn’t some sort of morality threshold below which you just have to put up with being conned, lied to and fobbed off. Consumer law is there to protect everyone, not just people whose behaviour and views you approve of.

It seems now that I will never accept an MN product recommendation or click on any link that they are promoting. I simply can't trust it to be truthful.

So, back to old fashioned asking friends and family or just using my nous and reading about the product on trusted websites.