Background
Summary of Council decision:
Three issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A TikTok post and a website for Turner Lewis, seen in November 2024:
a. A post on the Turner Lewis TikTok account featured a video of a young woman talking about the Government Child Trust Fund scheme. She said, “If you were born after September 2002, and you’re over 18, then there’s a good chance that you’ve got some money waiting for you in the Child Trust Fund, courtesy of the British Government […] if you haven’t claimed yet then don’t worry, because we’ve got your back. Just click the link below to begin your process of locating your Child Trust Fund and, guess what? It’s a no-win, no-fee basis, meaning you’ve got nothing to lose...”
A link in Turner Lewis’s TikTok profile led to a landing page. Headline text stated “Ready To Find Your Child Trust Fund? Let’s Get Started!”. Text below featured several boxes which requested personal information. A tick-box near the bottom stated “I confirm and acknowledge that I have read, understood, and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Turner Lewis. I authorise Turner Lewis to act on my behalf to locate my Child Trust Fund and provide the necessary support to access it”. Under that was a box for a signature.
b. The website www.turnerlewis.co.uk, included text on the home page which stated “Find Your Child Trust Fund With Turner Lewis […] we offer expert services to help you locate your Child Trust Fund on a no win, no fee basis. Our fee is 25% plus VAT of the total amount in the account”. Smaller text directly below stated “Please be aware that you also have the option to locate your Child Trust Fund for free directly through HMRC. However, our dedicated team has successfully assisted thousands of clients, providing a comprehensive walkthrough, results and peace of mind”. Text further down the page stated “We Achieve Incredible Results For Our Clients […] Turner Lewis specialises in locating Child Trust Funds, we are experts in the regulations and processes associated with such services”.
An embedded video repeated claims made on the home page. It also stated “Let us take the hassle out of the process for you. Simply submit your details on our website and we’ll handle the rest […] We reach out to 55 providers, leaving no stone unturned in our quest to locate your fund. While we wait for their replies, you can sit back and relax […] Schedule a 45-minute consultation with us, where we’ll guide you through accessing and withdrawing your funds. This session also helps us gather evidence to adjust our invoice accurately”.
Issue
- Money Saving Expert challenged whether the claim “you’ve got nothing to lose” in ad (a) was misleading because Turner Lewis charged for their services, despite consumers being able to trace Child Trust Funds for free using a HMRC tool.The ASA also challenged whether both ads:
- misled consumers about the nature of the advertised service, potentially deterring consumers from pursuing the free claim route; and
- were misleading, because they failed to make clear significant qualifications regarding a cancellation fee and the cooling-off period for Turner Lewis’s services.
Response
1. Turner Lewis Ltd said that the term “you’ve got nothing to lose” was intended to highlight that their service was offered on a “no win, no fee” basis. If they did not locate a client’s Child Trust Fund (CTF), no charge would be levied, so clients would be no worse off than if they hadn’t engaged their services. They thought that prospective clients would understand from the outset that if funds were located, a fee would be charged. They believed that consumers would reasonably understand that they would have to pay a fee for their services. They thought that, while unlikely, if a consumer hadn’t understood from the ad that a fee would be charged for the successful location of a CTF once they had engaged with their website and/or staff, they would have been made aware of the potential fees involved before they had any contractual liability.
2. Turner Lewis believed the ads did not imply that their service would be free. They said ad (a) specifically stated that their service was provided on a “no win, no fee” basis, which they thought made clear that a fee was involved. They accepted that the ad did not specify the terms of the fee, but said they were comprehensively explained in the full terms and conditions, which clients received and were required to sign before engaging their services. Clients needed to tick a box confirming that they had read the terms and conditions before they signed.
They rejected the suggestion that the ads portrayed them as a claims management company or that consumers would view them as one. They believed their CTF location service was needed due to what they saw as the failure of HMRC and other providers to provide consumers with an effective, successful way of locating CTFs.
Turner Lewis said they were open and transparent about their services, through their ads, website, and terms and conditions. They said they ensured all prospective clients were fully informed about the work they carried out and what they were agreeing to before deciding to use their services. They did not believe their ads presented the process of locating a CTF as more complicated than it actually was, or that consumers would be misled as to the nature of their business model. They believed they were justified in suggesting that it could be easier to locate a CTF using their service because they had built up expertise and relationships with providers, which they said helped them to locate funds faster and more efficiently.
They said their website made it clear that consumers could locate a CTF for free using the HMRC tool. They rejected the suggestion that any of the claims or terms highlighted in the complaint would actively deter consumers from exploring their options.
3. Turner Lewis believed that cancellation fees and a 14-day cooling off period were standard terms present in many contracts. They thought they were such common aspects of contracts that consumers would expect that fees would apply in the event of a cancellation outside of the cooling-off period, even if it had not been explicitly referenced in the ads. They also said that the cooling-off period and cancellation fees had been fully explained in the full terms and conditions of their service. Although Turner Lewis accepted that neither ad had made clear upfront that clients would be subject to cancellation fees or a cooling-off period with limitations, they felt that prospective clients had no liability for the cancellation fee until they had read and signed the terms and conditions.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not mislead by omitting material information, hiding it, or presenting it in an untimely manner.
The video in ad (a) featured a woman talking about the Government’s CTF scheme. The woman encouraged viewers to “click the link below to begin your process of locating your Child Trust Fund” and included the claim “It’s a no-win, no-fee basis, meaning you’ve got nothing to lose”. The ASA considered that consumers would likely understand from the statement “you’ve got nothing to lose” that there would be no financial impact from using Turner Lewis’s service to locate a CTF.
We acknowledged Turner Lewis’s view that the term “you’ve got nothing to lose” intended to highlight that their service was offered on a “no win, no fee” basis, and that people who further engaged with their website or staff would have been made aware of the potential fees they would be charged if Turner Lewis successfully located their CTF. However, we noted that the ad, and the subsequent landing page to which it linked, contained no information regarding the fees Turner Lewis charged if a fund was located, which was 25% plus VAT of the total amount in any account located, capped at £420.
While the term “no win, no fee” was likely to be understood to relate to financial services in which a potential charge was dependent on a particular outcome, it was not clear from the ad or the landing page how much any fee might be, how it would be applied, or if it would apply in all circumstances in which a CTF was located. We considered that those factors were material pieces of information a consumer would need to be aware of when deciding whether to engage Turner Lewis’s services.
We also noted that neither the ad nor the subsequent landing page included any information informing consumers that there was a free route to trace a CTF via the HMRC website, which we considered was material information which would have had a bearing on someone’s decision to use Turner Lewis’s service. In that context, we considered the phrase “you’ve got nothing to lose” further mislead consumers about the alternative option available to them to trace a CTF for free.
Because neither the ad nor the landing page included information about the fees consumers would incur from using Turner Lewis’s services, or the option to trace a CTF for free via the HMRC website, we considered that the ad had misleadingly omitted material information. We therefore concluded that the ad, which included the landing page to which it linked, breached the Code.
On that point, ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising).
2. Upheld
The CAP Code required that offers of financial products be set out in a way that allowed them to be understood easily by the audience being addressed, and that they must not take advantage of consumers’ inexperience or credulity.
We understood that CTFs were long-term tax-free savings accounts for children born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011. At the time of the complaint, the oldest people who may have had a CTF in their name would have been 22 years old. We therefore considered that the target audience for the ads would, by their nature, likely be younger people who were inexperienced with financial products and offerings. Given that context, we considered it was important for the ads to make the nature of Turner Lewis’s service explicitly clear.
Ad (a) included the claim “no win, no fee”, while text in ad (b) stated “locate your Child Trust Fund on a no win, no fee basis”. Ad (b) included the claim that Turner Lewis specialised in locating CTFs and stated that “we are experts in the regulations and processes associated with such services”. The embedded video seen in ad (b) also included the claims “Let us take the hassle out of the process for you” and “we reach out to 55 providers, leaving no stone unturned in our quest to locate your fund”. It also made reference to a “45-minute consultation” session, which the ad claimed helped Turner Lewis “gather evidence to adjust our invoice accurately”.
Ad (b) stated that Turner Lewis were experts who specialised in CTFs, from which we considered consumers would understand that the process required specialist knowledge or understanding. The embedded video in ad (b) reinforced that impression, by alluding to the “hassle” associated with the process, and talking about “leaving no stone unturned” in a “quest” to locate a consumer’s CTF. We considered the implied necessity for a “45-minute consultation”, which consumers were likely to view as a long and detailed meeting, further added to that impression.
We considered that consumers would likely understand from the presentation of both ads, and the use of language such as “no win, no fee”, that Turner Lewis operated in a similar manner to a claims management service, and that the process of locating and claiming a CTF was a potentially complicated procedure.
We understood, however, that consumers could easily locate a CTF themselves for free by submitting a subject access request to HMRC via their website, to identify the account provider of the CTF. We noted that neither ad (a), nor the landing page to which it linked, made any mention of the free route available to consumers to trace a CTF. Ad (b) included smaller text under the main headline text of the page which advised consumers of the free route. That was followed, however, by further text which stated that Turner Lewis’s team had helped thousands of clients, and that their services provided “peace of mind”. We considered this further contributed to the impression that locating a CTF was a complicated process, and that using Turner Lewis’s services was a quicker and more convenient alternative. However, we had seen no evidence that Turner Lewis followed any different processes from those that a consumer would follow themselves, i.e., contacting HMRC via their website.
Overall, we considered that both ads created the impression that Turner Lewis operated in similar fashion to a claims management service, when in fact they followed existing, freely available routes to trace a CTF.
For the above reasons we concluded that the ads deterred consumers from using the free HMRC tool to locate a CTF and misled consumers about the nature of Turner Lewis’s business model. We also considered that the age range of people eligible for a CTF meant that the ads took advantage of consumers’ inexperience and credulity by suggesting that the process was more complicated than it was, and that engaging Turner Lewis offered advantages over the free route, when that was not the case. For those reasons, we concluded that the ads had breached the Code.
On that point, both ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), and 14.1 (Financial products).
3. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that when making claims in their advertising, marketers should state any significant limitations or qualifications and must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information.
The ads stated that consumers had “nothing to lose”, and that Turner Lewis’s CTF location service operated on a “no win, no fee” basis. The full T&Cs found on another page of their website, however, stated that a cancellation fee of £150 plus VAT may apply if consumers cancelled the service after the cooling-off period during which they could request a refund had ended, or if they breached the client responsibilities as outlined in the T&Cs. The T&Cs also stated that consumers had a 14-day cooling-off period, but that it did not apply if the service had been fully completed within that period.
While we acknowledged that the full T&Cs of the service included information about both the cooling-off period and the cancellation fees, neither ad contained any information about those terms. We also noted from Turner Lewis’s response that while the length of time it took for them to complete their location service varied, approximately a third of successful cases had taken less than 14 days to complete, and that CTFs could sometimes be located within 24 hours. We therefore considered that a significant number of cases would see a CTF being located and Turner Lewis’s service being completed well before the cooling-off period had elapsed, meaning that consumers who might have wished to cancel the service within the cooling-off period would have been unable to do so in such circumstances.
We considered that the cancellation fee and the cooling-off period, including the information that it would not apply if the service had been completed, were significant qualifications that consumers considering using Turner Lewis’s service should have been made aware of upfront. We therefore considered that both ads had failed to state significant qualifications to Turner Lewis’s service and had misleadingly omitted material information. Both ads therefore breached the Code.
On that point, both ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), and 3.9 (Qualification).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Turner Lewis Ltd to ensure that their future ads did not mislead consumers about the nature of their business, omit material information, or take advantage of consumers’ inexperience and credulity. We also told them to ensure that any significant qualifications were made clear to consumers upfront.
