The two campaigns, for Diners Club and The Royal Bank of Scotland's RBS Advanta card, featured the offers as inserts in credit card bills offering "anniversary gifts" as a way of saying thank you to customers. Customers were invited to choose from a selection of four gifts.
Customers were then asked to return the selection with a tear-off slip. The Diners Club tear-off slip said, "Please send me the Thank You Gifts I've chosen. There's no hidden catch. Please debit my Diners Club card £3.97 for each gift selected, to help cover shipping and handling."
The RBS Advanta campaign, created by Tequila Payne Stracey, also asked for postage and packaging -- this time for £3.95 for each gift. The Dinners Club campaign was created in-house.
Complaints to the ASA challenged whether the items could be called gifts, because of the postage and packaging fee. In the case of the Diners Club campaign, the complainant believed the packaging and postage fee was inflated for profit.
Diners Club argued that the £3.97 constituted £1.31 for the average cost of the gift, together with fulfilment costs and administration. RBS Advanta claimed that it had never said the gifts were "free" and insisted that the £3.95 covered fulfilment and postage and packaging costs.
The ASA was not convinced, and upheld the complaints against both companies and ruled that because respondents were required to pay for more than the cost of postage, freight or delivery, calling the items "gifts" was unacceptable.