ASA Adjudication on DARH Ltd
DARH Ltd
Unit 7
Dylan Harvey Business Centre
Quebec Building
Bury Road
Salford
M3 7DU
Date:
15 February 2012
Media:
Text Message
Sector:
Financial
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
A11-177301
Ad
A text message from a claims management company, received on 18 October 2011, stated "Records passed to us show you are entitled to circa £3,250 in compensation from the mis-selling of PPI on your credit card & loan. Reply STOP or PPI for info".
Issue
1. The complainant challenged whether the claim "Records passed to us show you are entitled to circa £3,250 in compensation from the mis-selling of PPI on your credit card & loan" was misleading and could be substantiated, because he had never taken out such cover.
2. The ASA challenged whether the text breached the Code, because it omitted the identity of the marketer.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
Response
DARH Ltd did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by DARH's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of the CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and we told them to do so in future.
1. Upheld
Because DARH had not provided any evidence to show that they possessed records which indicated the complainant was entitled to circa £3,250 in compensation from the mis-selling of PPI on his credit card and loan, we considered that the claim had not been substantiated and was therefore misleading.
On this point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
2. Upheld
We noted that the text message did not contain information about the identity of the marketer and therefore concluded that it breached the Code.
On this point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.5 (Misleading advertising) and 10.6 (Database practice).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told DARH to ensure their text messages comply with the Code in future, in particular to ensure they include details of their identity and ensure they hold adequate substantiation for claims made in their text messages.
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