A reader sent in the United Debt Services mailer below through my I Buy Junk Mail program.
The mailer is from United Debt Services in Texas. What really caught my eye was how much the mailer hasn’t changed since I wrote about it in 2014.
I wonder if the mailer meets the standards set by the Federal Trade Commission when it comes to performance examples.
The FTC says, “If you advertise or represent that your customers will save a certain amount of money or reduce their debt by a certain percentage – for example, “We can settle your debts for 40% to 60%” – your statements must be truthful, and you must have objective proof to back them up. Your claims must accurately reflect the results you’ve achieved for previous customers. It’s important to consider the message your claims convey. Under the law, the FTC looks at claims from the point of view of reasonable consumers. Therefore, what matters isn’t the literal accuracy of the words you use, but rather your proof to support the “net impression” your message conveys. For example, claiming that your past customers have achieved “up to 60% savings” is likely to convey to new customers that they, too, will get savings of around 60%. If you don’t have solid proof to back that up, the claim is deceptive.” – Source
The example United Debt Services uses is this one.
Which is darn near identical to what they were saying back in 2014. So it seems the “program example” is not really a statistical example based on performance when after three more years of service, the results remain the same, except they now say the same results may take up to 48 months.
The mailer must be working well for United Debt Services since they are still using it. The mailer was sent from postal permit 1935.
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