Every now and then however, a cowboy operator comes along who does not respect the rules. It consists of a faxed page detailing the advertisement concerned, details of the complaint and any action undertaken by the Alliance and its members. The alert is sent to Alliance members, the European Advertising profession, European consumer organisations, the EU Commission and the International Marketing Supervison Network. The purpose of the alert is to ensure vigilance regarding the advertiser concerned, to warn consumers and appropriate authorities of scans which may move to other European countries. The majority of the alerts have concerned direct mailings.
Some EASA members have the same type of warning mechanism.
When they received the prize, it turned out to be a miniature toy version of the car. The advertisement mentioned a UK address, but the cheque had to be sent to an address in France. ASA contacted the Folkestone Trading Standards Department, who reported that the UK address appeared to be a forwarding address. The director of the organisation appeared to be based in Luxembourg. CLEP wrote a letter to the address to see what would happen, but received no reply.