Monday, January 08, 2007

Go Banking Ignores Privacy Law

Today I was called by some marketing drone from Nedbank's Go Banking call centre, offering me a credit card. I have already informed Nedbank that I do not wish to receive any marketing calls, yet they don't want to listen. That makes the call illegal, if not downright annoying. I have complained again, with reference number "FI258111 - Jan 8 2007 11:32AM"
Are these people so dimwitted that they don't realise the legal implications of continually phoning me? They have already lost out on a home loan from me, and at this rate they'll never get any business from me in future either.
Why illegal? The ECT Act makes it illegal for any business to make any kind of unsolicited communication when the (potential) customer has already indicated that he does not wish to receive such communications. 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's personal information, on request of the consumer.
When will the banks learn? I guess in the next decade or so, once they have had to explain to their shareholders why the Marketing Director had to go to jail for a year. Marketing Departments spend so much time talking that they don't listen. That's why the Nedbank Marketing department doesn't publish its email address.
Update 9-Jan-2007: Go Banking responded to the HelloPeter complaint, and have apologised. It remains to be seen whether the rest of Nedbank gets the message.

HelloPeter complaint

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