Monday, August 21, 2006

2049366339213 doesn't happen for me, Nedbank

They love their new marketing slogan: making things happen. Just like their old "Makes you think, dosn't it?" slogan from many years ago, this one has bitten them back.
The same crowd who sent me an unwanted (and illegal) SMS also sent me a letter. At the top of the letter is my barcode and reference number: 2049366339213. Then it gets my address wrong. Again, they are "congratulating" me for possibly qualifying for a personal loan of up to R100 000, depending on my salary.
So they are trying to make things happen. I guess it's a start. But instead of getting a new customer, they have lost one by their dubious tactics. The sad thing is that I'm in the market for a home loan. So by sending me an illegal SMS and an unwanted marketing letter, they have lost out on a lot more business.
I got a call from the personal loans people today, and they guy insisted that the SMS message is not illegal. Section 45 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, no 25 of 2002. states the following:
45. (1) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers, must provide the consumer—­
(a) with the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and
(b) with the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer'spersonal information, on request of the consumer.
The SMS message itself did not indicate any option to remove me from their list, so it becomes illegal. Secondly, they can tell me that they got the information from ETL Solutions, but ETL Solutions can't or won't tell me where they got my details from. They only said that it "could" be from the TV License database. So who then is breaking the law, Nedbank or ETL? Does it matter? They are both dodgy organisations in my book

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