The Financial Conduct Authority has leveraged the authority of The Terminator actor for its campaign to raise awareness of the deadline to make a complaint about payment protection insurance (PPI).
In an advert launched today an animatronic model of Arnold Schwarzenegger's head – voiced by an impersonator – is seen urging people to make a decision about making a PPI complaint before the deadline on 29 August 2019.
The deadline was introduced to prompt people into deciding whether to check if they had PPI and whether they want to make a complaint.
The campaign will appear on TV, online and on outdoor advertising across the UK over the next two years.
Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA said: “Our campaign aims to cut through the noise on PPI.
“We want to encourage people to decide whether to find out if they had PPI and whether to complain or not.
“Our message, and Arnie's, is ‘do it now’ and I urge people to make a decision before the deadline on 29 August 2019.”
The campaign is costing a total of £42.2m, including advertising and the new dedicated phone line to assist people with their PPI queries.
The FCA has also updated its webpages to give more help to customers in making a decision.
This is being funded by the 18 firms which together receive more than 90 per cent of complaints about the sale of PPI, including banks, building societies and credit card providers.
More than £27.4bn has been paid out to customers since the FCA introduced rules for complaining about PPI in 2011.
Firms have agreed to a number of steps to ensure the complaints process is as easy as possible for their customers, including providing an option for people to submit their complaint online, ensuring complaint forms are as easy to understand as possible and don’t put customers off complaining and providing support to vulnerable customers.
Today also marks the start of a new basis for complaining about PPI, meaning customers could be entitled to compensation even if they were not mis-sold.
If a customer has complained about PPI previously and had the complaint rejected, they may be entitled to compensation if the provider earned a high level of commission from selling PPI.
Commenting on the FCA PPI deadline announcement, Andrew Johnson, policy expert at the Money Advice Service, said: "If you have previously taken out a loan, mortgage or credit card and think you may have been misold PPI, you should get your claim in as soon as possible as the two-year countdown to the 29th August 2019 deadline begins.
"There is rarely any need to use claims management companies to reclaim mis-sold PPI, who often charge large amounts of commission.
"Help on how to complain to financial firms directly, and if necessary to the ombudsman service can be found on the Money Advice Service website. Alternatively visit the FCA's new micro site”.
damian.fantato@ft.com
