Press Release
Date: 5 September 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Preloved Welcomes Pet Watchdog's Advertising Standards
The UK's largest independent online classified advertising site, www.preloved.co.uk, has welcomed the set of minimum standards announced by the Pet Advertising Advisory Group (PAAG) yesterday to ensure advertising websites offering pets for sale promote animal welfare while protecting potential buyers.
www.preloved.co.uk has over five million visitors a month and its category for members looking to offer or find a new home for pets is a popular part of the site.
Ian Buzer, Managing Director of Preloved, said, "We have already adopted all of PAAG's minimum standards, many of which reflect our own rigorous system set up to stamp out any suspicious or inappropriate adverts on Preloved, while educating potential advertisers about their responsibilities, and buyers about the long-term commitment pets require."
The activity of buyer and sellers on Preloved looking to buy or rehome pets is already closely monitored to ensure they are not breaking any of the site's rules or acting illegally. A record is kept of any complaints made against a member, and the site can ban people whose buying or selling of animals appears in any way suspicious.
Each advertiser is also asked specific questions, encouraging them to provide as much information about an animal as possible, including its age, breed, details on any health checks or vaccinations that they have received, etc.
Mr Buzer said, "We believe that a well-run online classified site offers a much safer environment to rehome animals than some of the pre-internet alternatives, like newsagent windows and lamp posts."
Mr Buzer attended yesterday's meeting arranged by Lord de Mauley, the minister for animal welfare within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to discuss PAAG's proposed standards for classified websites.
He said, "It was a very constructive and positive meeting. We are now looking forward to working closely with PAAG to continue building a safe and robust online environment where people can find or offer a home to a new pet with even more confidence."
ENDS
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Notes to Editors
Preloved is the web site for people that love some of the older things in life. Started in 1998, Preloved has grown to become the UK's leading second hand website with hundreds of thousands of adverts in over 500 categories. Each month the site attracts over 5 million unique visitors. As a community-based advertising site it has over 1.5 million active members. Preloved is ranked amongst the top 500 most visited sites in the UK.
For buying or selling second hand, Preloved is a great alternative to the hassle and expense of auction sites, and a friendly change to the other more anonymous classifieds sites
Follow us on twitter @preloveduk
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