Bank Ads

[Greetings]

How is it that pretty much ALL bank advertisments are supposed to trick you into believeing something that's not really true? Loans, deposits, banks are trying to get us to use their products by offering a very competitive interest but only if you meet a million ridiculous requirements that appear on the telly in small print for 2 seconds. Truth be told if you watch one of these ads and decide to make use of the product they're offering you'll almost certainly be paying a lot more / getting a lot less than was promised to you in the ad.

How is this still legal (well ok, I know why but this is a rant), and why has nobody done anything about this? It's not misrepresentation but the whole banking sector marketing is based on telling half the truth in hope that customers will only find out the truth once the bill arrives, or even better never notice. This is wrong.

It's a bit like if Tesco said that you now only pay a pound for each lb of beef steak and added in small print that this only applies if you buy exactly 1/4 lb of steak, 20 loafs of bread, a 3-pack of beige socks and pay in cash while performing a tango with the store manager to Eminems music, holding a bottle of malt whisky in your mouth and a pair of red underwear hidden in your back pocket.

I've never actually had such problems with banks, mainly because I don't trust them and don't use them. How can you trust an institution which makes money by tricking their customers? Airline companies are the same, oh sure you can fly for 10 quid across Europe. Just as long as you're completely naked.

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

Loans, deposits, banks are trying to get us to use their products by offering a very competitive interest but only if you meet a million ridiculous requirements that appear on the telly in small print for 2 seconds.

They do exactly what they need to. It's not like opening a bank account/taking out a loan or whatever is going to be an impulse buy... I would expect most people to sus out exactly what they're getting before signing up. I'm actually quite impressed that wonga.com (or whatever it's called) are quite clear that the effective APR of their loans is over 3500%.

[Julius Czar]

The small print is merely there to cover their backs, so when you "get the bill" as you said and you complain they can say, "well we mentioned it in the dark and deep corners of your telly pixels, although you may not see it long enough or clearly enough to even make sense of what it even is, it's there, so when it comes up as an issue between the poor customer and the evil money lender/scammer, the customer, who has just signed their life away, doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's absolutely disgusting and shouldn't happen, but the law states that you can't lie about what your selling, but that only means you can't lie, so these companies can bend the truth as far as possible even to the point where your not actually sure what the truth is about the product/service. I just think you need to be wise to it, and steer clear from any short term loan service, because I've heard nothing but bad things about them, and don't just make decisions on impulse when you see an advert for any service offering money or anything alike, because it should be something that you take lots of time over and you should be completely clued up when it comes to a decision as big as that.

[MadManMike]

I think it would be in any contract you sign too, not just in the corner of your TV for 3 seconds

[Max Quinn]

To be fair pretty much all adverts do this to some extent. 'Prices from £3500' etc, when it's pretty rare you'll end up buying it for that, VAT, shipping etc will all be a bomb on top. If you buy anything over about £50 without doing your research you're pretty foolish anyways.