Darren Pescod, managing director of The Mortgage Broker, received the text message promoting TML’s remortgage service, which failed to contain any warnings or disclaimers for the recipient about the dangers of borrowing.
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Pescod believed such advertising was derogatory to the industry and could put consumers at risk.
He explained: “I think the use of mass SMS texting to capture potential mortgage clients is disgraceful. If every mortgage intermediary or lender takes up this practice we will get tarnished as an industry, as we will fall under that very undesirable category of the companies that sends spam e-mails or makes cold-calls in the evening trying to sell cheap mobile phone deals, double-glazing or to switch your energy provider.”
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Phil Hammett, project manager at Lightstone, admitted it would be virtually impossible to send an SMS text message that didn’t break FSA Financial Promotions guidance.
“From a compliance point of view, I don’t think you can get enough information in the space provided by an SMS text to cover yourself. Also, if you received an SMS text message from an unknown company, you would question its integrity as there is no way of establishing a brand name. It’s a very risky thing to do.”
However, a statement from TML insisted that all its promotions met regulatory standards.
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It said: “All our promotional SMS text messages are checked by our in-house compliance department. We are confident that there are no issues with our communications. We are, however, happy to consider any specific or individual complaints on this type of matter.”
