FSCS defends £4m ad spend

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So Mr Bamford does not support educating consumers. How interesting. A quick look at the FSCS website shows this campaign was developed with our representative bodies. It also shows the support of the Treasury Select Committee too. I, for one, may not like levies but feel this is an investment that may help busines. It seems like a cheap shot Mr Bamford when there are more important funding issues to debate when the cost of this is very, very small for advisors.

Posted by: JT

I agree

Unusually I agree with Mr Bamford and the cost of advertising the FSCS should fall upon the Government not those who pay the levies to compensate consumers for their loss. I fail to see any value gained from this anyway as given the ever increasing compensation bill I think consumers are more than aware how to claim compensation. No doubt the compensation bill will increase even further now the nutty EU courts have decided that insurers are discriminating against men and women by using gender to set their premiums. Oh what a wonderful world we live in. I suppose before long it will be discrimination to call and man Mr and a woman Mrs or Miss or Ms. Roll on the next good news article.

Posted by: Michael Fallas

I agree

Unusually I agree with Mr Bamford and the cost of advertising the FSCS should fall upon the Government not those who pay the levies to compensate consumers for their loss. I fail to see any value gained from this anyway as given the ever increasing compensation bill I think consumers are more than aware how to claim compensation. No doubt the compensation bill will increase even further now the nutty EU courts have decided that insurers are discriminating against men and women by using gender to set their premiums. Oh what a wonderful world we live in. I suppose before long it will be discrimination to call and man Mr and a woman Mrs or Miss or Ms. Roll on the next good news article.

Posted by: Michael Fallas

Taxpayers hit again - just like the banks

Why should the taxpayer foot the bill? Are you saying the taxpayer should pay for financial services again, just like we did for the banks? What an easy and siren call, oh the taxpayer can pay.

Posted by: C Hancock

Who is JT?

I think to time has come to ban comments where the sender is not clearly identified...

Posted by: Ken Durkin

Fair Pay

Re C Hancock If the government want consumer protection and the consumers want protection, they must pay for it. You cannot expect to insure your home and belongings and then expect your neighbour to help pay for it. As it stands consumers are paying already as the astronomical costs simply cannot be absorbed. A fairer system would be a product levy paid for by those purchasing a financial product.

Posted by: lol

Tunisia, Lybia, Egypt - and now IFAs

I am genuinely pleased to see this from Martin Bamford. I think his comment on the topic has been restrained a courteous. Let me put in plain language. Only a bloody Civil Servant who has never been responsible for making a profit and has lived a life leeching off the productive members of society could possibly come out with an inane and claptrap comment like this. It also reflects the really poor intellect of those who these bodies choose to employ. But why should that be surprising – why would anyone with real ability and ambition join such an organisation in the first place? Although of course it is very evident why some work there – they wouldn’t get anything like the salary in the private sector and would probably have to work a bloody sight harder for it to boot. When it comes to so called consumer education I find it passing strange that the very people who these public bodies seek to mollycoddle don’t seem to have problems working out the intricacies of the benefit system nor the mysteries of the accumulator bet. That apart – when (if) they are educated how likely are they to engage with financial services? Not at all I would have thought. Smoking, going to the pub and getting a 42 inch plasma TV will still be priorities. Financial services interaction will continue to be confined to spending money on Lottery tickets in these cases. So either way it is money wasted. But then bureaucrats are past masters at doing that. Let me not be understood – this applies equally to those apparatchiks both in and out of the financial services arena. When the axe is finally wielded to the public sector I imagine that all those who have been contributing to their free ride will breathe a small sigh of relief. For me the most insulting epithet one could possibly apply to another human being is – bureaucrat. (If you detect that I’m a tad annoyed – you have got the right picture).

Posted by: Harry Katz

advertising

I see no need for the FSCS to advertise, the FSCS are typical of a public funded department, they don't care what they are spending their money on. It is time (as with all public funded offices) that they were accountable. How few institutions that fund them can afford to pay for tv advertisements? They are comparing providers (who I don't know if they are aware are not in the intermediary class) or didn't they realise!

Posted by: Joanne

Insulting FSCS Advert

What most disgusts me about this FSCS TV advert is the message it gives to consumers, namely that they can be totally irresponsible morons who ignore all the obvious danger signs and yet it is someone else who will pay for their stupidity. In practice, that's them as well as all other more intelligent investors, by way of the higher charges we will have to make to document every conceivable risk they might otherwise want to try fraudulently claiming we didn't explain. If instead the FSCS had said that buyers should beware (you know, "caveat emptor") and think for themselves a bit, but that they would be properly compensated if they had been mis-sold through no reasonable fault of their own, the message would have my full backing. The FSCS are using our fees to encourage ambulance chasing when they should be trying to build trust.

Posted by: Michael Both

Feeling sensitive?

The fact that FSCS has published a set of quotes from supporters of the campaign on their website http://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/about-us/about-the-fscs-consumer-awarene-weq70bnk/quotes-supporting-the-consumer-yxu3rtn8/ suggests FSCS are feeling very sensitive about this point. The campaign has been more than two years in the making and was spawned by an FSA survey into FSCS awareness. Most respondents were concerned about the mechanics of how the scheme works, they knew there was a scheme but didn't know what it was called. It seems that FSCS was more concerned about getting its name about (I think that's called managing upwards).

Posted by: missold investor

Waste of money

What a waste of £4M. FSCS details are plastered on the bottom of every financial document where they are relavent. If it was public money, it would never be sanctioned.

Posted by: MarkG

Monopoly

Martin Neale is wrong to use the comparitive spend of the FSCS versus the funds industry. Regardless of whether you agree with the advertising or not, the FSCS operates as a monoploy whereas the fund management industry doesn't. They need to shout to be heard above everybody else, whether they're spending the money wisely is another story, but it's their decision in a commercial world. Neale's argument is thus very weak indeed, and if that's all he can use to defend his position then it might demonstrate that his entire argument to advertise is equally weak.

Posted by: Dennis Hall