Claims management firm rapped by advertising watchdog

Friday 3rd August 2012

A claims management firm has had complaints about it upheld by the advertising industry watchdog.

Gladstone Brookes, based in Merseyside, ran a TV advert saying that people who had been mis-sold PPI would find that seeking compensation ‘takes up your time. Fact’.

A clock with the hands turning quickly appeared on screen.

Three viewers challenged whether the claim misleadingly exaggerated the amount of time taken and difficulty required by consumers applying to reclaim their own PPI premium.

Gladstone Brookes told the Advertising Standards Authority that it did not believe it had exaggerated the time a PPI complaint would take a consumer because it did not quantify the amount of time it took a consumer to make a complaint.

The firm said consumers could not make a PPI complaint without taking time to do so.

However, the complaint was upheld. The ASA said that the process for reclaiming mis-sold PPI – to complain to the product provider or bank first, and if the complainant was not satisfied, the matter could then be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service – was the same whether a complainant complained directly or via a claims management company.

It said that even if a claimant was using a claims management company, it was possible that the claimant might still have to take additional time of their own to find and forward paperwork.

Gladstone Brookes have been told that the claim must not be broadcast again in its current form.