Claims chaser's missold mortgages ad banned
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The Advertising Standards Authority has banned an advert by a claims chaser on missold mortgages for misleading statements about the proportion of loans that are unenforceable.
The Authority also found that the claims firm failed to make it clear that a fee applied to its service.
The advert by Unfair Credit Direct was headlined “missold mortgages” and the text of the advert read “your unsecured loan and credit card agreements may be unenforceable? Call us now to find out! Do you know that through brand new legislation 70 per cent of credit agreements may be unenforceable?”.
But the ASA found that, while Unfair Credit Direct said its own figures and caseload pointed to the claim being accurate, the Authority had not seen evidence supporting the claim that 70 per cent of credit agreements might be unenforceable and therefore concluded that the advert was misleading.
Defending its position, Unfair Credit Direct argued its claim was based on their initial studies conducted from within the industry.
It claimed it had made many agreements unenforceable, and that more cases were still in progress, however, as a result of the legal uncertainty created by test cases in this area, it later decided to withdraw the service.
The ASA also found that, while Unfair Credit Direct did not charge upfront fees, it did charge once it was in a position to move forward with a case.
The ASA says: “We considered that the ad should have made clear that a fee applied to the advertised service, and because it did not we concluded that the ad was misleading.”
The ASA concluded that the advert must not appear again in its current form.
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Readers' comments (3)
Mark Hayes | 19 May 2010 2:15 pm
More sharks on the gravy train. Nothing changes does it ?
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Anonymous | 19 May 2010 2:32 pm
It's about time these ambulance chasers had their wings clipped. IMHO even if a credit agreement was riddled with errors why should someone get out of the loan if they had the money. Also if the transaction is reversed the lender should be able to repossess goods to the value of the loan that was originally granted.Restitution is about putting the parties back to the position they were before the transaction happened- so the lender should get his money back! These ambulance chasers are a bunch of shysters.
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PAUL | 20 May 2010 0:17 am
Claims chasers love telling everyone how they are licensed by the ministry of justice. Check the rules and they can do pratically whatever they like. The ministry allow them in writing rights to no retrospective rulings (wouldn't that be nice!). I spoke to a fos adjudicator and she told me "well they are authorised by the minsitry of justice"oh that's all right then they are a government body. They are all in it together- chasers find the client- fos gets the fee- the ifa pays the bill- just a "big shake down".
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