Cash Crusaders has been reprimanded for posting a misleading ad, which saw a prospective seller offered much less in store than was advertised online. (Simpson33/Getty Images)

• The Advertising Regulatory Board found a Cash Crusaders advertisement to be misleading.
• The advertisement claimed that it would pay R2 750 for an Xbox Series S, but a prospective seller was only offered R1 200.
• Cash Crusaders explained that the advertised sale price was the maximum that a seller could receive for the product.
• For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.

Cash Crusaders has been reprimanded by the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) for offering a customer a lower price for his Xbox than seemed to be advertised on the second-hand merchant’s website.

A customer complained to the ARB after being offered R1 200 for his Xbox Series S by Cash Crusaders, despite an indication on the Cash Crusaders website that the devices could be sold for R2 750.

While Cash Crusaders also offers a range of first-hand products, a big part of the company’s business model relies on buying second-hand goods and flipping them for a profit.

To attract sellers, Cash Crusaders advertises what it considers to be the maximum possible sale price for some standardised products on its website, such as R2 750 for the 512GB Xbox Series S.

Cash Crusaders explained that the amount offered to a seller is dependent on the condition of the product. 

However, the ARB said Cash Crusaders did not indicate that the advertised price was the maximum possible price that would be offered for the product. 

The following advertisement was deemed misleading by the ARB. (Screenshot/ARB).

A similar advertisment is listed on the Cash Crusaders website. (Screenshot/Cash Crusaders).

The R2 750 sale price is under the header “we pay for”, meaning that Cash Crusaders did not indicate that this was the maximum amount that would be paid for the product.

“There is nothing that makes customers aware that the advertised price is the maximum price that the advertiser will pay for the Xbox and that the price payable by the advertiser depends on the condition of the item,” the ARB said in the ruling.

The ARB argued that it would have been easy for the advertiser to warn consumers about this by changing the wording of the advertisement or by placing an asterisk next to it and explaining the technicalities of the advertisement in a different place. 

In light of this, the ARB said that the advertisement was misleading, and said that its members should not republish advertising from Cash Crusaders with the same misleading claim. 

Cash Crusaders is not a member of the ARB, so the regulator has no authority to enforce a change in the advertising.

In its voluntary response to the ARB case, Cash Crusaders said there was a disclosure in all its stores that stated that Cash Crusaders had the right to buy or not buy any item that was brought into the store and that customers had the right to reject any deal offered by the company.

The company also said it had the right to “take and pay things as per the conditions, demographics and the specs of the item”.

Cash Crusaders apologised for the inconvenience to the customer.