As if the public were not already sceptical enough of the banks, believing them to be motivated more by greed than anything else, the lid has just been lifted on the incentive scheme that Lloyds TSB uses to push its staff into selling customers extras and packages that they do not want and likely don’t need.
The system awards their staff points if they manage to sell people an extra financial product or service whilst they are in the branch. By adding up all the points the member of staff has earnt during a particular time period, the bank can assess how much extra income that member of staff has brought in. Whilst that might sound almost innocuous on its own, staff are given points targets that they must aim for. If they meet the target, they are given a bonus.
Although incentives for staff to sell customers more are not uncommon, though they can be very annoying, people are particularly angry with the banks doing this due to the recent PPI mis-selling scandals.
If a customer could reasonably expect to get some use out of a product they were being offered, then the act of selling it to them might not be so bad, but when that happens with a product that is entirely useless, people feel totally ripped off.
What’s worse is that the people responsible for instituting policies like this then get paid massive bonuses themselves, which customers feel must be coming from the extra amounts they’re being squeezed for.
However, one of the biggest accusations thrown at the bank is that not only do they use these pushy sales tactics, but also deliberately mislead people as to what the best place for their money would be, hoping to get a customer attached to an account that pays out a lower interest rate and thus gets the bank itself more money. With claims like this being made, people’s opinions of the big banks is likely to drop lower still.