The complaints regarded adverts where the estate estate claimed “every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove”.
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has cleared complaints made against Rightmove regarding claims on the number of leads it receives.
A poster from Rightmove in May read: “Every second someone in the world gets married and every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove”.
Another poster in June included the text: “Every second a bee flaps its wings 230 times and every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove”.
Three complainants challenged whether the claim “every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove” was misleading and could be substantiated.
However, Rightmove said that in its 2018 annual report it showed the huge number of leads it receives.
The leads consisted of email and phone enquiries made either electronically via the Rightmove website, via apps or by using one of the trackable phone numbers provided on each Rightmove property listing.
Rightmove clarified that there were 31.5 million seconds in a year and that they received 42 million leads in a year, amounting to 1.3 enquiries per second.
The ASA ruled: “We considered those figures were sufficiently robust as the basis for the advertising claim.”
The authority concluded that the claims in both ads had not been substantiated and were not misleading.
