Groupon to be investigated by Office of Fair Trading-

Advertising watchdog refers daily deals website after it was found to have broken UK ad regulations 48 times in 11 months

The Office of Fair Trading is to launch an investigation into Groupon after the daily deals website was found to have broken UK advertising regulations almost 50 times in less than a year.

Groupon, which offers promotional deals to subscribers on anything from restaurant meals to beauty treatments, has been referred to the OFT by the Advertising Standars Authority. 

It has emerged that the OFT secretly launched its own investigation into Groupon in July – although it has only become public knowledge today following the ASA's decision to refer – to see if the company is "complying with consumer protection legislation, including in relation to certain of its advertising practices".

The advertising watchdog has made 11 formal rulings of code breaches against Groupon, which it has published. There have been a further 37 informal breaches that the ASA has addressed without publishing details.

Groupon's most recent breach came last week when the ASA banned a promotion email offering discounted cosmetic surgery, ruling that it "pressured" consumers into hurriedly making potentially life-changing decisions in just a few hours.

In a statement the ASA said that it was referring Groupon over three specific concerns: "failure to conduct promotions fairly, such as not making clear significant terms and conditions"; "failure to provide evidence that offers are available"; and "exaggeration of savings claims".

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US-based Groupon offers coupons to its subscribers, which give them discount deals on anything from restaurant meals to spa treatments.

The OFT has previously shown an appetite for investigating new online business models in order to evaluate their impact on consumers. In 2009, the competition regulator launched an investigation into behavioural online advertising  to see how the habits and personal information of web users are used to target internet advertising.

Groupon uses E advertising to promote goods and services using the Internet but there are some regulations that must be respected. the goods and services must be pomoted fairly otherwise people may buy them and be disapointed. Website designers are responsible for reviewing the information used to substantiate ad claims so that consumers must be able to notice, read or hear, and understand the information. That is why I think that refunds must be made to dissatisfied consumers. 
Actually, the FTC Act already prohibits unfair or deceptive advertising in any medium. That is, advertising must tell the truth and not mislead consumers. A claim can be misleading if relevant information is left out or if the claim implies something that's not true. Claims must be substantiated, especially when they concern health or safety. 

 Ads should qualify broad environmental claims - or avoid them altogether - to prevent deception about the specific nature of the benefit. 

Internet is not enough, I think that written reports must be printed and signed by both the advertiser and the customer before the transaction is done. This will avoid misunderstandings and false or exagerated claims. 

This problem does conern E-marketing/ advertising in general since people do not trust internet transactions: Many people still hesitate to do any financial transactions online because they simply don’t trust it.
Indeed, everybody knows someone who has never purchased online because they feel the internet is full of thieves, hackers and unethical people. The truth is that the risk is not only about  giving personal and financial information but also about being well informed about the good/service we are willing to buy.