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The Green Deal Finance Company has been forced to withdraw a brochure over “misleading” assertions about the value of its payment plans.
The Advertising Standards Agency found the finance providers for the government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme had failed to substantiate claims about its payment plans.
The ASA upheld three complaints by Crystal Home Improvements, a double glazing installer that also offers finance plans.
Despite insistences from the GDFC its brochure was targeted at businesses, the ASA considered it could also be accessed from the website by consumers and treated it as a promotional leaflet.
The GDFC had failed to provide sufficient comparators or qualifications for the claim Green Deal payment plans were “typically the cheapest on the market for medium sized loans, given reasonable expectations for increases in interest rates over the long term”, the ASA said.
Secondly, the brochure did not made clear that there was no guarantee consumers would save money, in the assertion: “We provide peace of mind by only lending if the government’s Golden Rule is met. This states that the expected financial saving should be equal to or greater than the costs attached to the energy bill.”
Thirdly, a page comparing Green Deal plans to personal loans failed to set out additional costs such as arrangement and assessment fees, and exit penalties.
The GDFC, a not-for-profit mutual company that works with Green Deal Providers, said it was “grateful” for the guidance. It noted the ASA had accepted that Green Deal loans “had a lower APR than most of the products selected, when the loan term was the same length”.
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