Sunday 12 January 2014

Yet another blow to annuities - from online adverts

The cost of buying retirement income, which has been criticised by MPs, is inflated by the existence of “murky” internet marketing firms that collect savers’ personal data and sell it to other middlemen, a Sunday Telegraph investigation has found.
These companies advertise heavily on internet search engines such as Google and Bing, ensuring that their websites pop up in the results when savers try to find the best annuity – the controversial insurance product bought by 400,000 people a year to turn their pension into income.
Many websites masquerade as qualified experts or even financial advisers and ask savers to tap in details such as name, age, address and telephone number. They promise to scour the annuity market for a 40pc income boost that could make savers thousands of pounds richer in old age.
However, many of the websites are merely marketing outfits, or “introducers”, that harvest the data and sell it on to real brokers and advisers, who provide access to annuities. The firms earn up to £300 per customer “hoodwinked” and sold on in this way.
Companies that pay for the data typically bombard customers with phone calls and emails to secure a sale. In a mystery shopping exercise carried out by The Telegraph, some firms failed to supply their names or clarify whether they were giving regulated advice or were just acting as brokers or introducers. Introducers can be compared to city “guides” in countries such as Morocco or Egypt, where unsuspecting tourists are led to shops that charge a fortune for souvenirs.

No comments:

Post a Comment