Last Updated on August 18, 2026
Most business owners read the CMA fines and file them under big company problems. Ticket sites. Driving schools. Nothing to do with a six person firm in Leeds.
That reading is wrong, and at some point it is going to be expensive for someone.
The rule the AA broke is not a big company rule. It applies to every UK business selling to consumers, whatever its size. And the thing it governs is not a clause buried in your terms. It is the price on your website. That is a marketing asset. Which makes this a marketing problem.
What actually happened
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 gave the CMA the power to fine businesses directly, without going to court first. In the first year of those powers, April 2025 to April 2026, the CMA opened investigations into 14 businesses, issued 157 advisory and warning letters, ordered more than £1.3 million in consumer refunds and imposed fines approaching £6 million.
Four cases are worth knowing.
| Business | What they did | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| AA and BSM Driving Schools | A mandatory £3 booking fee added at checkout instead of shown upfront. More than 80,000 learner drivers affected. | £4.2m fine Over £760,000 in refunds |
| Marks Electrical | Customers pre-ticked into paid extras, appliance recycling and packaging removal. Nearly 40,000 customers. | £720,000 fine About £600,000 in refunds |
| StubHub | Mandatory fees left out of the price shown upfront. | £889,200 fine Refunds ordered |
| Euro Car Parks | Repeatedly failed to respond to a CMA information notice. Under appeal. | £473,000 fine |
Each of the pricing fines was settled early in exchange for a 40 per cent discount. The AA’s fine before that discount was £7 million.
The CMA’s position is short enough to remember. If a fee is mandatory, it belongs in the price from the very start, not at checkout.
Why a £3 fee cost £4.2 million
Because the fine was never about the £3.
The offence is the gap between the price you use to win attention and the price the customer actually pays. The £3 is the harm. The advertised price is the breach.
That distinction matters, because it moves this out of your accountant’s inbox and into your marketing. Nobody in a legal department chose “from £49”. A marketer did.
Where smaller businesses actually get caught
You do not need a checkout to do this. Most of these sit on ordinary service business websites:
- “From £49” when nobody can genuinely buy at £49
- A booking fee, admin fee or card fee added at the final step
- Delivery presented as optional when there is no collection option
- A pre-ticked box for insurance, protection or a service plan
- Prices displayed excluding VAT to consumers
- A callout charge that only appears when the van arrives
One qualifier worth having. This is consumer law. If you sell only to other businesses, it does not catch you. If you sell to the public, it does, and turnover is not a defence.
The callout charge is the most common one in the trades, and the most quietly damaging. Not because of the CMA, but because it is a leading reason a warm lead goes cold on the doorstep.
The check that takes twenty minutes
This is Start stage work. Foundations, not tactics. Do it before you spend another pound driving traffic to a price that is not real.
- Open every place you show a price. Your website, your Google Business Profile, your ads, your social bios, your quote template.
- For each price, ask one question. Can a customer pay exactly this and get exactly this? If not, it is not your price.
- List every charge that is genuinely unavoidable. Unavoidable means unavoidable, not “usually applies”.
- Move those charges inside the headline number.
- Delete every pre-ticked box.
If the honest number now looks too high, that is useful information about your offer. It is not a reason to hide it. Our research on what UK services actually cost shows how far real market rates sit from the headline figures businesses advertise.
What is coming next
Two things worth putting in the diary. The CMA published updated unfair contract terms guidance in July 2026, and new guidance usually signals where enforcement goes next. Separately, new subscription contract rules are due in spring 2027, covering renewals and cancellations. If you sell a retainer, a membership or a monthly plan, that one has your name on it.
The CMA has also confirmed that businesses are responsible for what their AI agents say in consumer-facing contexts. If a chatbot on your site quotes a price, that is your price.
The takeaway
Your advertised price is not a marketing message with a legal footnote. It is a legal statement doing a marketing job.
Fixing the display is compliance. Fixing the offer underneath it is growth. Most businesses have been treating the honest number as a conversion problem, when it is usually the fastest way to stop wasting money on leads that were never going to buy at the fake one.
If you want the wider picture on how UK businesses are actually performing online, start with our UK website and digital adoption statistics.
