15 October 2009 – A mail-out from loan company Horizon Finance has been described as "misleading" by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).
The mailing from the company told recipients: "Congratulations! Your application was passed to us by a company that you applied to last year. Even though you may have been refused credit in the past we have pre-processed your application and feel sure that we can accept you for an Instant Cash Loan."
The letter was challenged by a recipient who had never applied for a loan, and who feared that her identity had been 'cloned' and her credit worthiness affected.
Horizon Finance defended its claim that recipients of the mailing had previously applied for credit by stating that its mailing list was made up of people who had in some way applied for a loan in the past. The company added that its database included details of people who had at some point used loan comparison websites and not ticked an opt-out box. By not ticking the box they had explicitly asked for marketing material, the company argued.
However, because Horizon Finance could not tell the ASA when the complainant had allegedly applied for a loan, the regulator agreed that the text was a breach of the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code). In its adjudication, the ASA reminded Horizon Finance that advertisers have "ultimate responsibility for the accuracy of marketing material" and told the company to ensure that future mailings "do not suggest that recipients had applied for financial products when they had not and to ensure that clients had given their consent to be contacted."
The regulator also upheld a complaint about the envelopes Horizon Finance had used for the mailing. The envelope the complainant had received did not in any way suggest that it contained marketing material. The ASA rejected the company’s excuse that this because of difficulties it had had with its envelope suppliers, and agreed with the complainant that the envelopes should have been "clearly marked to show that it contained marketing material to avoid any confusion or ambiguity about its status."