1. Upheld

The ASA noted Action for Debt said they believed the claim "Waiting list to see the C.A.B. is up to 3 weeks!" was true; however, since we had not seen evidence of that, we considered that the claim was misleading.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).

2. Upheld

We noted Action for Debt claimed that they offered more options than the C.A.B.; however, we understood from the C.A.B. that they offered more options in personal debt, such as the opportunity to apply for Debt Relief Orders within their organisation. The C.A.B. also stated they had a preferred partnership with Consumer Credit Counselling services and the ability to refer someone in-house to a special caseworker funded by the Money Advice Service to help with Payment Protection Insurance recovery. We considered the ad implied that Action for Debt offered more options than the C.A.B. for all debt problems, both for business debt and personal debt. Because we had not seen sufficient, robust evidence to demonstrate that Action for Debt offered more options concerning debt advice than the C.A.B. we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.33 (Comparisons with identifiable competitors).