Earlier today, on 6 May 2020, the UK Advertising Standards Authority published a decision on a consumer credit financial promotion involving ClearScore using the word “pre-approved” without telling the customer that further checks would be needed.
The ASA said “the average consumer would understand the term “pre-approved” in the ad to mean that they were guaranteed to get any loan or product subsequently shown to them as pre-approved when using ClearScore’s services. We noted that the pre-approved offers would be dependent on personal eligibility, subject to the customer providing the correct financial information to ClearScore, and subject to a lender’s own checks. However, there was no information in the ad to indicate that further checks would be made following a pre-approved offer, which could result in the application being declined. Because the claim “pre-approved”, in the context of the ad, was likely to be understood to mean that customers who received “pre-approved” offers would be guaranteed to get those offers, when that was not the case, we concluded that the ad breached the Code”.
The ASA told ClearScore to make sure its advertising complied with CONC and to make it clear that pre-approved offers are subject to additional checks by the lender before approval.