The ASA has banned an Onestream ad over auto-renewing extras
The Advertising Standards Authority has told Onestream to stop running a broadband advert in the form it appeared, after ruling that its headline price left out two subscriptions that were added to the order during the checkout and started charging once their free trials ran out. The ruling was published on 9 September and upheld a single complaint.
The advert was seen on the provider’s own site on 17 June. It offered a 12 month package with “80 Mbps” as the heading and “£22.99/month” underneath it, then smaller text saying “£25.74 from Apr 2027” and a £14.95 one off activation charge. What it did not mention was that two services were being put in the basket along the way: Onestream Priority Plus, free for 30 days and then £7.95 a month, and McAfee Multi Access, free for the same period and then £34.95 a year. Left to run for a full year, the pair come to roughly £130 on top of the price the advert led with.
What the ASA actually objected to
Onestream told the regulator that both services were optional, could be cancelled inside the free trial and could be taken out at the checkout, and that it has since removed them from the checkout journey so they are now extras a customer has to actively add. The ASA upheld the complaint anyway. The screenshot it was shown put the remove option in small type in the top corner of a box headed “Included with your order, free for 30 days”. The regulator did not think that was prominent enough, and it noted it had not been given a full copy of the page to judge properly. Either way, the advert itself said nothing about the trials, so a reader would take £22.99 to be the whole monthly cost. The advert broke the CAP Code rules on misleading advertising and on prices.
What it means if you are buying broadband
The practical thing here is to read the basket line by line before you confirm, then check the first bill when it lands. A trial that renews quietly is easy to miss. If something has been added that you did not choose, the cooling off period gives you a window to cancel the order, and our guide to broadband price rises covers the separate question of a headline price that climbs partway through the term. If a provider will not take an unwanted charge off, the route is a formal complaint and then the independent scheme it belongs to.
The honest limit here is scale. One person complained, and nobody has published how many orders included the two trials or how many were billed for them. Onestream says the checkout has changed since June, so what you would see today is not what the ASA looked at, and we have written before about migrated customers getting mixed answers from the same provider. What the ruling settles is narrower and still worth having: an advert has to say when a package comes with a trial that turns into a bill. Our availability checker shows which networks reach your street.