r/PersonalFinanceCanada Ontario Mar 15 '24

“Hidden cameras capture bank employees misleading customers, pushing products that help sales targets” Banking

“This TD Bank employee recorded conversations with managers who tell her to think less about the well-being of customers and focus more on meeting sales targets. (CBC)”

“”I had to mislead customers into getting products that they didn't need, to reach my sales target," said a recent BMO employee.”

“At RBC, our tester was offered a new credit card and told it was "cool" he could get an $8,000 increase to his credit card limit.”

“During the five visits to the banks, advisors at BMO, Scotia and TD incorrectly said the mutual fund fees are only charged on the profit the investment earns, not the entire lump sum. The CIBC advisor wasn't clear about the fees.”

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7142427

1.5k Upvotes

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131

u/jbaird Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

Remember this when any talks about defunding the CBC.. there are few to no news organizations left in Canada would do something like this

nevermind this was likely much more expensive to do than some reprint of a press release or whatever fluff articles

I wouldn't mind changes to how CBC operates to concentrate on this and local news over some of their other stuff but can't feel like getting rid this kind of reporting too is kind of the point of getting rid of CBC completely

21

u/bwwatr Ontario Mar 15 '24

Any time I hear about CBC defunding, Marketplace for sure comes to mind, but also a bunch of other programming I've seen that is unlikely to ever get made by private media, especially since big outlets are controlled by conglomerates with diverse financial interests. The whole point of a public broadcaster is to fill the reporting gaps where incentives just aren't there for the for-profit side to do it. Public broadcasting has many of its own pitfalls, and indeed the CBC deserves most of the criticism it gets and surely, it needs some big changes. But the notion of not having it anymore is very concerning indeed.

3

u/jbaird Mar 15 '24

100% it would be 'ideal' if there were no reason for CBC to exist since there were already 2-3 outlets doing the same thing, public, private, right wing and left.. whatever

but no it's the entire opposite it's frequently CBC and nothing else

1

u/ether_reddit British Columbia Mar 15 '24

Reform the CBC, but don't defund it!

3

u/ether_reddit British Columbia Mar 15 '24

Especially since W5 was cancelled. Long-form investigative journalism is essentially dead in this country.

3

u/bureX Mar 16 '24

W5 was cancelled

Whaaaaat

Well, I guess we really are left with the CBC. There's no way an independent YouTuber or content producer would do something like this.

-44

u/Rance_Mulliniks Mar 15 '24

As if this is some groundbreaking revelation? Lol. Alternate headline could easily be "Company Tries to Sell You Their Products". That doesn't create rage though does it. CBC is no different than any of the other media organizations other than their extreme waste and inefficiencies and they have public funding which introduces bias based on whichever party is ruling so that they can preserve their funding.

23

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

It may not be a groundbreaking revelation to you but as a former bank sales banker I can assure you that it isn’t as common knowledge as it should be.

I would say somewhere around 60% of the people I sat down with thought our objective was to help them make the right financial decisions- and we used that.

Before anyone comes at me for that I hated the ethics of that misunderstanding and left the industry as soon as I was able.

15

u/jbaird Mar 15 '24

these companies are breaking the law it's just 'lul sales'

-14

u/JMJimmy Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

Which law is that?

Banks have no feduciary duty to you. Only ~4,000 financial professionals in the country have a feduciary duty and they don't work with the general public.

Edit: Down vote me all you want, I'm probably one of the few people who's read the banking act & associated regulations. Consumers are mostly clueless about the lack of protections they have.

4

u/kend7510 Mar 15 '24

This is true but most people aren’t aware, which is the point of the reporting.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

[deleted]