Mudrex - Mudrex INC

Recommendation: Upheld | Medium: Suo Motu - NAMS (TAMS)

In the absence of required action on or before the prescribed due date, Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) considered this complaint exparte. Advertisement shows an Influencer promoting a cryptocurrency investment platform. The advertisement carries a disclosure label of `#ad’ in the advertisement. However, this disclosure label is inserted at the end of the description in the advertisement and is buried in a group of hashtags. It is not stated upfront and hence could be missed by an average viewer. This disclosure label would not be visible to the viewer when viewed from a mobile phone and the viewer would need to scroll down to view the same. The influencer (Bhavya Joshi) appears to be a financial influencer but has not disclosed her SEBI registration or relevant qualifications, such as an IRDAI insurance license, CA, or CS certification. Since she is promoting services in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector, it is essential for her to have the necessary qualifications and certifications to provide accurate and reliable information to consumers. Moreover, she has not provided proof of these qualifications and have not disclosed them upfront in the advertisement. In the absence of such disclosure labels, the advertisement is misleading by omission and exploits consumers' lack of knowledge. Since necessary disclosures were not inserted in the captioned advertisement, this advertisement is in Chapter I, Clauses 1.4 and 1.5 of the ASCI Code, Clause 1, 1.2 (a, c) of the ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media, and Clauses 1, and 2 (2) of Addendum II For Health and Financial Influencers of the ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media. Complaint was Upheld.