A woman has hit out at advertising watchdogs after they slammed her competition to win a £2.5million castle.
Susan DeVere put Orchardton Castle, near Auchencairn, into a prize draw after repeatedly failing to find a buyer for the 45-room property.
But after failing to attract enough ticket sales on www.winacastle.co.uk, she instead offered a cash prize.
That led to one person complaining to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), questioning whether “the promotion had been administered fairly”.
And the agency deemed Ms DeVere had breached the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing.
However, Ms DeVere disagrees and says there were “a lot of inconsistencies” in the investigation.
She said: “The competition we ran was transparent. I said in every interview there would be a cash prize if there weren’t enough tickets sold.
“I will appeal but, as it’s the ASA, there’s no point because they are an organisation funded by advertising companies.
“I believe I ran a fair competition. The ASA said I can’t do it again but I may well do it again. It is the ASA that should be under investigation.
“They get thousands of complaints that they don’t investigate but because one person has complained here they have investigated.
“If an individual had said what they’d said I could sue for slander but because it’s the ASA I can’t do anything.”
Ms DeVere had been hoping to sell around 400,000 tickets but was only able to shift just over 20,000, raising £107,000.
The majority — £77,000 — was given away as prizes. Almost £19,000 was given to four charities – the Rainbow Trust, Mossburn Community Farm, Upper Nithsdale RDA and End Yulin. Around £10,000 was taken for expenses, such as advertising, although Ms DeVere
insists she didn’t take anything for her own costs.
In its ruling, the ASA said: “Because neither the advertised prize nor a reasonable alternative had been awarded, we concluded that the promotion had not been administered fairly and was in breach of the code.
