Misseling banks .... How about unfair customers?

System

Mishomeister wrote: »

If I was advising customers to go to competitor, I would be out of job.

If you tell your manager that you cannot in good conscience sell your bank's crummy ISAs, because you know that customers can get significantly better deals elsewhere, then your manager has no valid grounds for criticising you, let alone sacking you.

If any company aims at short-term sales, ignoring honesty, it will lose customers. If a company honestly admits not being able to meet a particular customer's particular need, that customer is more likely to trust that company to meet other needs. For example, if a salesperson admits that they haven't got a sweater that fits me, I'm quite likely to go back to that shop when I need a shirt. If I'm manipulated into buying an unsuitable sweater, I'll avoid the shop for ever afterwards.

By mis-selling these old people a premium account, you risked them moving all their banking business elsewhere when they found out they had been duped. Indeed, I hope they have now done so.

opinions4u

YoungNick wrote: »

If you tell your manager that you cannot in good conscience sell your bank's crummy ISAs, because you know that customers can get significantly better deals elsewhere, then your manager has no valid grounds for criticising you, let alone sacking you.

If you're in a selling job and you are refusing to sell the products your employer has available, then you will be sacked and there isn't a court in the country that would support you.

Andystriker

YoungNick wrote: »

If you tell your manager that you cannot in good conscience sell your bank's crummy ISAs, because you know that customers can get significantly better deals elsewhere, then your manager has no valid grounds for criticising you, let alone sacking you.

And did you know the moon is made of cheese:rotfl:

YorkshireBoy

YoungNick wrote: »

If you tell your manager that you cannot in good conscience sell your bank's crummy ISAs, because you know that customers can get significantly better deals elsewhere, then your manager has no valid grounds for criticising you, let alone sacking you.

Just how 'young' are you Nick?

DrSyn

IrishGypsy wrote: »

What? You mean unlike the various posters and advertising available INSIDE branches (or online), or in promotional leaflets detailing all of the current interest rates for all available products? QUOTE]

No. I mean more like when I recently went to open a simple savings account & made clear that was all I wanted & nothing else!

1. First the banks sales person ignoring what I had clearly asked for, repeatedly tried to sell me a product linked to the stockmarket.
They only stopped after

(a) I pointed out the drawbacks to there product.
(b) Told them where I could get something similar, much cheaper.
(c) Started to ask them how much commision they get from its sale.

2. After I got my savings account, they then tried to sell me other things I had not asked for or want!

Many old people I know still think of the banks of the 1950's, as being trusted to look after their welfare. They do not realise they are now "points of sale, with money movement attached!

So I ask again why cannot bank sales persons say:
(a) We can only tell you about our own banks products.
(b) We are agents of the bank & paid by them for products we sell.

JuicyJesus

YoungNick wrote: »

If you tell your manager that you cannot in good conscience sell your bank's crummy ISAs, because you know that customers can get significantly better deals elsewhere, then your manager has no valid grounds for criticising you, let alone sacking you.

This is quite simply the stupidest thing I have ever read. I find it hard to imagine how someone could be so wilfully idiotic.

O4u, as ever, is right. You would be dismissed. Then you would be laughed out of your employment tribunal. Your union, if you were a member of one, would have an interesting time defending the assertion that you can't sell the products of the company you are employed to sell the products of - if, indeed, they did so. Probably because all of this has a special word for it (perhaps one too long for the person who suggested it) - "insubordination".

Employment rights are a wonderful thing. This is a right that absolutely nobody has or should have. You have the right to refuse orders that are illegal, not ones that are part and parcel of your employment by a firm.

I, personally, see little wrong with what the OP has done. All it points to is the need to have signed declarations for absolutely everything that could be turned around into a crappy missale complaint years down the line.

JuicyJesus

DrSyn wrote: »

So I ask again why cannot bank sales persons say:
(a) We can only tell you about our own banks products.
(b) We are agents of the bank & paid by them for products we sell.

Both are implied in the fact that such people do not present themselves as impartial in any way shape or form. Such a thing should be obvious. I expect someone in a Lloyds TSB uniform to represent Lloyds TSB, and to talk to me about Lloyds TSB products.

There is no reason why they can't say that. There's just no real reason why they should. Despite what many seem to think, banks are allowed to assume a certain amount of intelligence in their customers, and do not have to pander to extremely thick people who can't work out that when they go into a specific bank they're only going to get that bank's products.

I would expect any responsible member of bank staff, if asked to comment on competing products or to give advice, to respectfully decline, because by and large they are simply not authorised to. Again, the OP seems to have done nothing wrong, especially since the customer had clearly indicated their interest in a product, which required the "missold" product as a precondition of purchase.

opinions4u

DrSyn wrote: »

So I ask again why cannot bank sales persons say:
(a) We can only tell you about our own banks products.
(b) We are agents of the bank & paid by them for products we sell.

(a) Because it's fairly obvious to anybody with half a brain. If I go in to Debenhams to buy a shirt I don't expect the shop assistant to provide me with a spiel about how they can only sell the shirts of Debenhams and are not able to put a Marks and Spencer shirt through the check out. If I go in to the Halifax I don't expect them to flog me a Santander product.

(b) Well I'd hardly expect Marks and Spencer to be paying the wages of a Debenhams assistant. I don't expect Barclays to pay the wage of an HSBC worker. I wouldn't want John Lewis staff telling me "There is a profit share scheme that I benefit from by selling you this product" every timee I go in.

I'll throw the question back at you. Let's assume it becomes a requirement to use both sentences that you propose.

What difference would it make to anybody?

Do you know any smoker who has read the warning on the packet and handed them back to the shop and declined to purchase?

Do you know anybody who has decided not to buy a house because they saw an advert for a mortgage that said "your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up the payments"?

"Hi, I work for Barclays. I can only sell you Barclays products. Barclays pay my wage." - are people going to run out of the branch and walk straight in to the Skipton Building Society, just so they can hear a similar speach?

Mishomeister

YoungNick wrote: »

If you tell your manager that you cannot in good conscience sell your bank's crummy ISAs, because you know that customers can get significantly better deals elsewhere, then your manager has no valid grounds for criticising you, let alone sacking you.

Yeah, and if you work in a Ford centre and tell customers that they would get a better deal with Renault across the road, you will not get sacked :rotfl:

YoungNick wrote: »

If any company aims at short-term sales, ignoring honesty, it will lose customers. If a company honestly admits not being able to meet a particular customer's particular need, that customer is more likely to trust that company to meet other needs. For example, if a salesperson admits that they haven't got a sweater that fits me, I'm quite likely to go back to that shop when I need a shirt. If I'm manipulated into buying an unsuitable sweater, I'll avoid the shop for ever afterwards.

The banks don't aime for a long relationships, just for a quick profit the most competetive ISA rate ends after a year. And banks will not reward staff if someone keeps a product for 5 years, therefore staff are incentivised to sell today.

YoungNick wrote: »

By mis-selling these old people a premium account, you risked them moving all their banking business elsewhere when they found out they had been duped. Indeed, I hope they have now done so.

They gone out of the bank £250 better off. I did not stop them to go online for a better deal or ask their grandson etc to do it for them. However they didn't. They came to my bank to get advise on the best avalable to them in this bank, which they had

Joe_Bloggs

Somewhere it is written that between two thirds and three quarters of all cash ISAs are earning an interest rate of 0.5% or less. The cash ISA pool is close to 170 billion.

Ignorance is bliss for the banks as complacency/ignorance has hit epidemic levels amongst financial consumers of cash ISA products. This abandoned ISA cash is virtually free money for the banks.

Perhaps consumers will splurge their savings and rescue the economy once they find out what little interest they are getting.

J_B.