The ads are simply there to get people to make that call,and I agree totally that the equity thing is a much bigger issue than they make it out to be. Nowadays its nigh on impossible to remortgage so the only way to get to any significant equity is to sell up!!(unless you have someone who is willing to lend you lots of cash). Clearly if the equity figure is smaller then extending a trust deed to deal with this is much easier.

Paul

In a funny way there has probably been some progress here.

The Advertising Standards Agency took a lot of debt help providers around the UK to task a couple of years ago for failing to include warnings in their adverts.

In addition the OFT's new "debt management guidance" consultation document (which applies to trust deed firms as well as debt management plan providers) is much more prescriptive than it used to be about not promoting benefits of certain solutions too prominently while ignoring potential pitfalls. This isn't a final version of the updated rules yet, but most people don't think this side of things will change too much.

I don't know this for a fact, but I doubt these types of TV trust deed adverts carried these warnings a few years ago.

Seem to have got tighter on thes "electrical pay weekly shops" advertising happy smiling people with their 60 " TV's then look down at the average interst rate of 1798%. That seems to have been a recent edition as well. Still the Scottish Government have been very proactive in setting up TD's and Debt Repayment schemes.