Charterhouse Claims has had one of its adverts banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
An e-mail for the claims management company stated, in the subject line, “Banks suggest PPI end date. Don’t miss out on £1000’s, claim NOW!” Text in the e-mail stated “Find out in 60 Seconds if you are owed compensation! Claim now … Quick and simple 1. Complete our 60 second test 2. Sign and return the pack we send you 3. We assess your claim and begin your case 4. You receive your money back”.
Lloyds Banking Group challenged whether the ad was misleading and could be substantiated, because they understood there was no deadline for filing a claim about the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI).
Charterhouse Claims Ltd said it was well documented that the British Bankers Association (BBA) had approached the financial services regulator in early 2013 (the then FSA) to encourage them to set a deadline for the mis-selling of PPI and the BBA was requesting that claimants be given until the Spring of 2014 to make a claim. They stated that once that deadline had passed, the BBA wanted its members to be allowed to reject all claims on the basis that a ‘Time Bar’ was in place.
Charterhouse Claims stated that the tactic of ‘Time Barring’ had been universally approved by the FSA with regard to complaints about mortgage endowment mis-selling and believed it was therefore pertinent to make their clients aware of that information, which was in the public domain. They said the subject line in the ad stated “Banks suggest PPI end date” which indicated that an end date had been put forward for consideration. They provided links to articles which reported on the talks between the banking industry and the FSA and provided examples of letters from one product provider rejecting complaints on the grounds that they were time-barred and another letter from a different product provider setting out the timescales for referring a complaint, including the point at which they would time-bar any future complaints.
The ASA understood that consumers needed to contact their policy provider, or the IFA who had arranged the policy, in order to claim for mis-sold PPI. If they were not satisfied by their response, they could refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) for adjudication. The advertisers had provided documentation showing that the FOS had time limits in place for consumers to refer complaints and the ASA understood complaints to the FOS should be referred within six months from the policy provider or IFA sending the consumer a final response to their complaint, and within six years from the event the consumer was complaining about or, if later, three years from when the consumer knew, or could reasonably have known, that they had cause to complain.
However, the ASA said it had not seen any evidence showing that the financial services regulator had formally adopted a policy for a deadline. The ad regulator said that while there were notional time limits in place and that it might therefore be advisable to avoid delaying a complaint referral, there were currently no additional or specific time-bar rules for referring PPI complaints and also noted that the FOS might take account of any exceptional circumstances which had caused a complaint to be referred out of time and waive the time limits in those cases.
While the advertiser had provided examples showing that one product provider had time-barred a complaint, the letter nonetheless included the relevant referral information for the consumer to refer their complaint to the FOS for adjudication and the ASA had not seen any evidence that PPI complaints to the FOS were being time-barred.
The ASA noted that the ad stated “Banks suggest PPI end date” in the subject line but did not provide any further information clarifying the basis of the claim, namely that the banking industry and financial services regulator were discussing and considering the matter. It also noted that the ad stated that consumers should “claim NOW!”.
In light of that, and in the absence of further qualifying information setting out the basis of the subject line’s claim, the ASA considered that some readers would understand from the ad that there was definitive deadline by which consumers must make a PPI claim and, because that was not the case, it concluded the ad was misleading.
