Take a look at these tweets…

These are tweets from people and companies that are continuing to promote false window scrappage schemes. I covered this earlier on this year, but the stream of fake news keeps on coming.

For clarity, for any home owners who have found their way to this article, there is no window scrappage scheme in any form. It has simply become another buzz word. It means nothing. There is no funding for windows under any scheme, or anything by the Government.

As with other tactics that have become long overdue for the bin from our industry, this is obviously becoming the next bogus selling tactic. The question is, the longer it goes on, when does it become an issue for bodies outside of our industry to address?

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An issue for the ASA?

The ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority. Their job is to police advertising of all kinds in the UK. Although it’s a self-regulatory body and cannot enforce legislation, their guidelines closely follow legislation and action can eventually be brought via the process. Given that there are a number of accounts online, far more than just the ones above, I would say that this is definitely within their remit to address.

If they were to look at this, I’m not sure what they could do. I doubt that they would be able to find the culprits behind these Twitter accounts. Take a look at them, they don’t look genuine. Yet, they’re well engaged with plenty of likes, replies and retweets. It would help is the body could take a look at these tweets, and the rest of the material online that refers to such false schemes.

Should the ASA look at this, I doubt they would be able to take any solid action against such accounts. However, it would be helpful for them to provide a statement to the general public, either via industry media or direct to the public themselves to supply crystal clear guidance as to what is right and wrong with what is being said.

But, I have to say, even though it’s going to sound negative again, that this is unfortunately yet another example of how bad our industry is. There are plenty of good people out there, yet the more I look at our sector, the more it appears that there just as many bad people and companies out there who seem happy to scheme and con their way to a living. Ruining it for the rest of the sector.

Ultimately, it is the consumer that is left most damaged by this whole thing. Distrust builds, reputations tarnish and our whole sector just looks as dodgy as Parliament does right now.

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