Payday lender Nouveau Finance Ltd has been told by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) not to send two of its SMS marketing messages in their current form.
The first text, received on 6 November 2013, stated “If you need £200 today and can afford to pay back on your payday then unlock it TODAY with us at www.paydayunlocked.com – We trust you. ReplyStop2End”.
The second, received on 14 December 2013, stated “We can offer you up to £400 to help with Christmas this year. Verify your details at www.paydayunlocked.com and we can transfer your money within 15 minutes”.
Two complainants, who had each received one of the text messages, challenged whether the text messages breached the ASA Code, because they were unsolicited and were irresponsible, because they believed they trivialised the taking out of a payday loan.
Nouveau Finance Ltd said they were a broker platform that provided access to a panel of lenders for their affiliate partners to connect to. They said the text messages were sent by an affiliate, AMC Marketing Ltd, and they had contacted them to obtain the opt-in information but stated it had not been provided.
AMC Marketing did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
The ASA considered that, as the company receiving the benefit of having consumers directed to a website under their control, Nouveau Finance had a duty to ensure that any party employed to promote that website did so in accordance with the CAP Code. It therefore considered that Nouveau Finance should be considered to be responsible for the ads, in association with AMC Marketing.
No evidence was supplied to demonstrate that the complainants had given appropriate consent to receive the text messages and the ASA therefore concluded that the ads had breached the CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 10.4, 10.4.2 and 10.13.3 (Database practice).
Furthermore, because the ASA considered that both text messages made light of the decision to take out a payday loan, it concluded that the ads were irresponsible.
On that point, the ads breached the CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Responsible advertising).
The ASA told Nouveau Finance Ltd and AMC Marketing Ltd to ensure that appropriate consent had been given before sending, or employing others to send on their behalf, marketing communications by text message, and to ensure that their future advertising was prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society.
