Groupon complaints pile up

Complaints about Groupon advertising practices are continuing to flood in after being investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority and then the Office of Fair Trading.

Marketing Week reports that since the daily deal firm was referred to the OFT in December, complaints to the ASA have increased. It has received 162 about 161 advertisements since the referral.

In the first 11 months of 2011, the ASA found Groupon had broken the advertising code for promotions 48 times - of these 11 complaints were upheld and the remaining were informally resolved. A Groupon spokesman said in Marketing Week: “The number of complaints to the ASA is tiny in the context of the several million vouchers Groupon has sold in the UK in the period in question, and the many happy customers who return to Groupon again and again.”