ASA bans PPI claims firm's ad after complaint from RBS
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The Advertising Standards Authority has banned two advertisements from claims management company Gladstone Brookes for being misleading.
The ASA received three complaints about the television and press ads on June 9 2011 - one of which was from the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The TV ad stated: “PPI has been mis-sold to many who didn’t need, want or ask for it. A few years ago I was mis-sold PPI. I contacted Gladstone Brookes and they managed to recover over £7,000 for me within just four weeks. If you’ve had a loan in the last six years where you didn’t understand your repayments or the insurance sold to you, call Gladstone Brookes now before your claim time runs out.”
Flashing on-screen text stated “Call now before time runs out”.
While a press ad stated: “Product reclaim, PPI premiums are now being returned plus Interest where the product has been mis-sold and we make a successful claim against your loan provider.
“You could be owed up to £7,000 plus interest, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused and urge you to call us now to arrange your policy refunds before your deadline passes. Please call our product reclaims unit now”.
RBS challenged the ads because it believed that there was no deadline for submitting a PPI refund claim.
It also challenged whether the statements “product reclaim” and “sorry for the inconvenience caused” were misleading and that the ad claimed it was an official route offered by the supplier of their PPI policy.
Gladstone Brookes stated that the deadline referred to the fact that banks destroyed policy documents and information relating to policy sales after a period of time.
However the ASA upheld the complaints because it felt the ads suggested there was a strict and definitive deadline date by which complaints must be made and believed that the claims overstated the urgency for referring a complaint through Gladstone.
The ASA also believed that from the wording used on the ads some consumers would infer that the advertisers were responsible for mis-selling the PPI policies and could be directly contacted to obtain redress.
It has asked Gladstone Brookes not to use the ads again.
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Readers' comments (3)
Julhaz Miah at Guardian Claims Management Services | 3 Jan 2012 11:47 am
But Gladstone Brookes are correct because if the organisation that mis-sold the PPI to a client has been liquidated and are no longer trading. then the Financial services compensation scheme will only cover the client if their client is within 6 years of the mis-sell of PPI or any other financial product. SO THERE IS A TIME LIMIT.
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Anonymous | 13 Feb 2012 6:06 pm
Well done on this RBS!
Claims firms like this have caused so many issues for real people its untrue. Adverts like this even prompt people to say "i didnt need it", "i didnt want it", "i didnt ask for it", and I have no doubt some people were mis-sold, but the british masses caught in the middle who want to pull a fast one are armed with what they need to say to make a claim whether its genuine or not.
I personally know of people in regulated positions who have been suspended due to customers claiming foul play and with companies looking to make cuts and redundancies have then used this as ammunition to cut the workforce regardless of IDD & signed FSA paperwork being on file from the same customer now claiming to not know anything about the PPI (and with documentation confirming previous discussions and confirming that they wanted to take it out!)
I think claims firms should be stopped from stoking the fire by encouraging people to claim, the regulator should do more to protect the customer & staff in regulated positions and companies should use the documentation they provide employees at point of sale to back-up past conversations and agreements between employee and customer.
There should be less of this blame culture and more of tackling the real issue in this country.
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how to claim back ppi | 19 Apr 2012 1:42 pm
I personally know of people in regulated positions who have been suspended due to customers claiming foul play and with companies looking to make cuts and redundancies have then used this as ammunition to cut the workforce regardless of IDD & signed FSA paperwork being on file from the same customer now claiming to not know anything about the PPI (and with documentation confirming previous discussions and confirming that they wanted to take it out!)
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Jenni
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