Employees of financial institutions posting on Askaboutmoney

Our Posting Guidelines are quite clear:

If you have a connection with the company or any other potential conflict of interest, please state this in your reply.

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Even if it was not specifically stated, it should be obvious that employees of financial institutions should not post claiming to be happy customers.

Employees of the following companies have posted recently without disclosing their conflict of interest:

Anglo Irish Bank
emmalouise whose posts have frequently flattered Anglo Irish Bank and has on, at least one occasion, criticized a competitor, has been banned.

By comparison, another employee of Anglo Irish Bank occasionally emails us to correct inaccuracies.

Bank of Scotland
JohnBob50 highlights Bank of Scotland's rates and tend to be informational.

Quinn Life
Albany who has some gushing praise for his employer.

bocade who has made a useful contribution to Askaboutmoney but claims to be a customer.

MLT
who has also promoted Quinn Life products as a satisfied customer

The Quinn Life one is the most offensive abuses of Askaboutmoney. Quinn Life has benefited hugely from recommendations and discussion on Askaboutmoney. I personally have recommended their products on radio and in newspaper interviews. The fact that three people are promoting Quinn Life without declaring their interest will cause some people to wonder if this was a corporate policy by Quinn Life. As far as we can make out, these are not some overenthusiastic junior employees.

Consequently we have banned the three Quinn Life users and we have banned the Quinn Life IP address also to make it more difficult for them or any other employees to do it again.

Information posts and corrections are welcome
RaboDirect has posted some useful information on their products without any subterfuge and we welcome that. It is an addition to the site.

National Irish Bank sent me the press release on their new mortgage product and as I thought it might be of interest to many users on Askaboutmoney, I posted it here

Brendan Burgess
Founder
Askaboutmoney.com

Can I add that the Report Posts button can be used to report suspect posts.

If you suspect a poster has a conflict of interest, and hasn't declared it, please report the posts in question.

Sly gits! thanks for letting us know about this.

I presumed you learned this by analysing IP addresses? Unfortunately there's nothing to stop someone doing the same from home which would be undetectable. Have you contacted the institutions involved? This sort of abuse surely would reflect very badly on them and they ought to have some sort of corporate policy in place so that employees don't do this sort of thing. They're lucky enough that these shennanigans haven't been "broken" in the mainstream media.

I am sure Sean would love to know that his employees are spending their working hours looking for ways to promote his company.

Declaring my hand - work with BOI.

Have reviewed all my posts - don't believe I could be accused of blatently promoting BOI in my replies (but you'll be the judges of that), have mentioned very occasionally, but only with factual information that was already in the public domain.

I agree with previous posts, individuals purporting to be 'happy customers' on any financial institution is indeed underhand and shouldn't happen.

However I'll share a frustration (or two).......

* first of all I get a sense that yet again, we (those working for a financial institution) are all immediately guilty by association

and

* why home in only on those in financal institutions - how satisfied are we that garageman aren't promoting their brand of car - retailers aren't promoting their brand of washing machine etc etc?

End of a very long day - needed to get all that off my chest..........

(BOI) BM

Hi Bank Manager

There is no need to feel guilty by association.

Askaboutmoney is primarily a financial site and so we will out employees of financial institutions who promote their companies without declaring their interest.

We have deleted many posts promoting non-financial companies.

Brendan

Bank Manager said:

Declaring my hand - work with BOI.

Have reviewed all my posts - don't believe I could be accused of blatently promoting BOI in my replies (but you'll be the judges of that), have mentioned very occasionally, but only with factual information that was already in the public domain.

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I agree and don't believe that anybody was pointing the finger at industry insiders in general - just those that were uncovered masquerading as independent, objective observers while posting often persistent or gushing praise of one financial institution or their products.

* first of all I get a sense that yet again, we (those working for a financial institution) are all immediately guilty by association

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No - Brendan explicitly points out examples of where representatives of financial institutions have made useful contributions by posting factual information as opposed to gushing praise or any hard sell about their products.

* why home in only on those in financal institutions - how satisfied are we that garageman aren't promoting their brand of car - retailers aren't promoting their brand of washing machine etc etc?

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That has also happened in the past and the perpetrators of such spam were also banned.

Bank Manager said:

Declaring my hand - work with BOI.

Have reviewed all my posts - don't believe I could be accused of blatently promoting BOI in my replies (but you'll be the judges of that), have mentioned very occasionally, but only with factual information that was already in the public domain.

I agree with previous posts, individuals purporting to be 'happy customers' on any financial institution is indeed underhand and shouldn't happen.

However I'll share a frustration (or two).......

* first of all I get a sense that yet again, we (those working for a financial institution) are all immediately guilty by association

and

* why home in only on those in financal institutions - how satisfied are we that garageman aren't promoting their brand of car - retailers aren't promoting their brand of washing machine etc etc?

End of a very long day - needed to get all that off my chest..........

(BOI) BM

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I agree - BM has helped me in the past with his posts and in no way has pushed BoI

Ditto for BM.
Have also had a helpful post from him/her.
R

Can I take it that it is accepted for these 'industry insiders' to promote their own institution/product as long as they visibly indicate their connection? It would appear that way from some of the frequent posters on the site?

I don't think that this is the case. Posting factual data for clarification about one's wares is one thing. Actively promoting them would fall foul of the no advertising guideline in my opinion.

And the distinction between the two is?

I would have thought that that was clear. Just the facts versus some sort of sales pitch. For example - "we offer x% APR on balances of €y+" versus "we offer the best deal".

Perhaps I should be grateful that the answer to my last question wasn't- 'for us to decide' !

Although I see a distinction between posts where the person claims their product is the best ( whether true or false) and those of a purely factual basis, it seems to me, that it is all advertising nonetheless.

However I don't see why JOHNBOB50 is mentioned in this thread on that basis since his post is purely factual and he merely omitted to make it clear that he worked for the institution in question.

Also, promotional posters tend to start a new thread, or take an existing thread off course. Whereas a factual clarification would answer a genuine question from another poster.

JOHNBOB50 ... merely omitted to make it clear that he worked for the institution in question.

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Yes -- in breach of the posting guidelines. He was given multiple opportunities to admit this. This is unacceptable, even when the posts are "factual".

Although I see a distinction between posts where the person claims their product is the best ( whether true or false) and those of a purely factual basis, it seems to me, that it is all advertising nonetheless.

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I disagree and Brendan has tried to illustrate the difference between what's acceptable and what's not above.

However I don't see why JOHNBOB50 is mentioned in this thread on that basis since his post is purely factual and he merely omitted to make it clear that he worked for the institution in question.

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Presumably because he did not abide by this posting guideline:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanilla http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=307831#post307831
Perhaps I should be grateful that the answer to my last question wasn't- 'for us to decide' !

What's your point? When it comes down to it the moderators will decide these thing

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Although it appears to have been misinterpreted this comment was made in a lighthearted vein simply because, naturally, this is a matter for the mods/admins to decide.



My question ultimately centers on the definition of advertising. AAM policy prohibits advertising but the wikipedia definition of advertising is:

Advertising is the business of drawing public attention to goods and services, and is performed through a variety of media.

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But it appears to me that that is exactly what JOHNBOB50 is doing regardless of whether or not he discloses his relationship with the institution in question.

I have deleted some off-topic comments.

Vanilla, it's a very difficult problem for us solve and the mods have discussed it at length. Every situation is different and is judged on its merits. I like to think that we get it about right most of the time.

A lot depends on the reaction of the person when we raise it privately with them. We have had other cases before where we got a clear apology for breaching posting guidelines and that was the end of the matter.

Bizarrely, we have been threatened with the Data Protection Act by one offender which had the exact opposite effect from what was intended.

There is a continuation between information, advertising and spam.

If there is incorrect information on AAM and it's corrected by someone, that is welcome.

If we say that X is the Best Buy and someone else says that Y is better when it's not a fair comparison and that person is connected to Y, then they must disclose this.

If someone pretends to be a satisfied customer of Quinn Life, for example, when, in fact, they are an employee that is a very serious breach of everything that AAM stands for. Even if some of their previous posts have been very informative.

Brendan
Founder
Askaboutmoney

I'm a man who has had many disagreements with Brendan and the Mods over the years....and its been a fair few bloody years at this stage....but I have to agree with what they are saying alright in this instance. Need to be seen to be above certain products etc. being pushed by people with hidden agendas...