A Welsh car dealership has landed in hot water after tricking customers with a £1 car offer.

Radio adverts for The Trade Centre Wales at Neath Abbey near Swansea were branded “misleading” by the advertising watchdog because they told customers they could give the dealership £1 and get a car to drive away in.

In fact customers could pay £1 deposit, then pay the balance shortly afterwards or they could apply for finance.

However the advert did not make this clear, said the Advertising Standards Authority.

It has warned the dealer to ensure its advertising claims are clearly substantiated in future.

The Trade Centre Wales argued the adverts conformed to consumer protection and consumer credit regulations and had been cleared in advance by experts, and no complaint was received by Trading Standards.

The ASA said: “We considered listeners were generally unlikely to expect to be able to purchase a car outright for one pound but considered the ads, in particular the claims, "for only a pound you could get a new car", "give us a pound and we'll give a car to you", "give us a quid and we'll give a car to you", "paying only a pound is a really low price" and "buy a car from a pound", implied that was the case.

 “Because the ads did not make clear a significant qualification, we concluded that they were misleading.”