The personal injury sector is frequently singled out for these practices, with accusations that it is to blame for rising insurance premiums and fraud. Rogue players in the sector are tarnishing the reputation of ethical and professional personal injury businesses and reducing consumer trust. This can adversely affect access to justice for genuine personal injury victims and ethical companies need to take action. As a result leaders in the personal injury sector established the Ethical Marketing Charter to take a stand against nuisance marketing, misleading advertising and unethical information sharing. By signing the Charter, companies can demonstrate their commitment to ethical and professional marketing, whilst publicly challenging others to improve.
We all agree that marketing in a responsible, ethical manner is best practice – let’s make it the only practice.
The Ethical Marketing Charter is an industry-led initiative that allows companies in the personal injury sector to take a public stand against unethical marketing practices and to challenge others to follow suit.
The charter was established to highlight unethical marketing practices and help to eradicate them. Unethical marketing practices such as cold calling, spam texts and spam emails are leaving consumers across the UK angry and harassed. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received over 180,000 cold-calling complaints in the last year alone, with a recent Trading Standards study finding that around 40% of the phone calls received by older and potentially vulnerable people were unsolicited.
The government has begun to take action, but political will alone is not enough to eradicate these practices – industry must also take action.
The personal injury sector is often singled out for undertaking bad practices with accusations that it is to blame for rising insurance premiums and fraud. Rogue players in the sector are tarnishing the reputation of ethical and professional personal injury firms and reducing consumer trust.
Having acknowledged the need to act, professional and ethical organisations in the personal injury sector established the Ethical Marketing Charter to take a stand against nuisance marketing, misleading advertising and unethical information sharing. Companies that sign the Charter can demonstrate their commitment to ethical and professional marketing, whilst publicly challenging others to improve.
The Ethical Marketing Charter ultimately aims to eradicate unethical marketing practices within the personal injury sector and make life better for consumers by ensuring that signatories adhere to three primary commitments:
The Charter will help highlight to consumers those organisations which have ethical and professional credentials, allowing them to deal only with those that have their interests at heart. Consumers’ appetite to deal with ethical organisations will lead to pressure being put on rogue companies to reform their practices and sign up to the Charter.
Over half of the consumers questioned in a recent independent survey by Populus (56%) reported that they find cold calls distressing. The Charter aims to reduce the volume of cold calls – along with spam texts and emails – by standing up for ethical marketing and encouraging organisations to cease these unscrupulous practices. Driving out the unethical buying and selling of personal data can also help to ensure that individuals are not called and pressured into making a claim, and clear advertising helps to ensure consumers make decisions based on the facts.
The Charter aims to allow consumers to identify those organisations which market responsibly and can therefore be trusted with personal data. The organisations that sign up will also help to challenge rogue operators in the sector to stop poor marketing practices, ultimately reducing the prevalence of unethical marketing in personal injury.
Unethical marketing is defined as marketing and communications which are misleading, confusing and unsolicited.
If you have received a nuisance call (either from a real person or via a pre-recorded marketing message), a spam text, a spam fax or spam email, you can report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office here.
If you have received a silent or abandoned call, you can report it to Ofcom here.
If you have noticed misleading or deceiving advertising, you can report it to the Advertising Standards Agency here.
If you suspect a signatory to the Charter has breached any of the three commitments, please fill in the form, giving as many details as possible. We will then contact the signatory about the breach, asking them to resolve the issue within three weeks.
If multiple breaches are reported, we will contact the signatory again to ask for evidence that there has been no breach, or that the organisation is no longer undertaking the reported practices. If an organisation does not provide this evidence within two weeks of sending them the request for evidence, they may be removed as a signatory and will be reported to the relevant regulator.
You can join the fight against unethical marketing practices by:
The Ethical Marketing Charter alone cannot stamp out bad practice. Rogue companies will continue to operate unless the Government acts.
The Government recently lowered the threshold necessary for the Information Commissioner’s Office to impose fines, and increased the penalties associated with persistent cold communications, but this will address only one aspect of a wider and more complex problem.
We believe the Government needs to do more to tackle unethical marketing by
You can see which companies have signed up to the Charter and pledged their commitment by following the link to our signatories’ page.
Unethical marketing practices such as cold calling, texts and spam emails are leaving consumers across the UK angry, misled and harassed.
The personal injury sector is often singled out for undertaking bad practices with accusations that it is to blame for rising insurance premiums and fraud. Rogue players in the sector are tarnishing the reputation of ethical and professional personal injury businesses and reducing consumer trust.
By signing the Charter, companies in the personal injury sector can reassure their customers that they do not undertake unethical practices – allowing consumers to make informed decisions about who they work with and challenging others to improve their practices.
By signing up to the Charter, companies in the personal injury sector are committing to:
For further details on how to adhere to these commitments, please read our full policy document.
To begin the process of signing up to the Charter, fill in the form here.
Your company’s designated representative (usually the person who originally signed up to the Charter), will receive an email confirming that your application has been approved.
The company’s name will then be added to the list of signatories, which can be accessed here.
By signing the Charter your organisation will be able to demonstrate its ethical and professional credentials to consumers. You will reassure your customer base that you do not undertake unethical practices and that you want to ensure that others in the sector are not misleading or causing distress to consumers.
Membership of the Charter relies on compliance to the commitments. If a signatory is suspected of non-compliance, consumers are encouraged to report the breach to the Charter administrator and/or the relevant regulator.
If the suspected breach relates to a nuisance call (either from a real person or via a pre-recorded marketing message), a spam text, a spam fax or spam email, consumers can report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office here.
If it relates to a silent or abandoned call, consumers can report it to Ofcom here.
If it relates to misleading or deceiving advertising, consumers can report it to the Advertising Standards Agency here.
If a consumer suspects a signatory of breaching the terms of the Charter, they can fill in this form, including all relevant details of the breach. The charter administrator will then contact the signatory about the breach, asking them to resolve the issue within three weeks.
If multiple breaches are reported, the administrator will contact the signatory again to ask for evidence that there has been no breach, or that the organisation is no longer undertaking the reported practices. If an organisation does not provide this evidence within two weeks of sending them the request for evidence, the administrator reserves the right to remove it as a signatory and report the matter to the relevant regulator – to be reinstated only once it demonstrates that it conforms to the Charter’s commitments.
The Charter is administered by its founder, National Accident Helpline
There is no time limit on membership of the Charter. Once a company has become a signatory of the Charter, it will remain a member indefinitely. If the Charter’s commitments are amended, signatories will be required to confirm that they adhere to these new standards before continuing their membership.
Membership can be revoked at any time if a signatory is found to be non-compliant.
For media enquiries or to make contact with the Charter administrators, please contact the Ethical Marketing Charter’s communications adviser.
Rebecca Goshawk
media@ethicalmarketing.org.uk
020 7234 3663
To report nuisance calls, texts, or emails, click on the graphics below to be taken to the relevant regulator’s reporting form
Information Commissioner’s Office
Website: www.ico-org.uk
From landline 0300 123 3333
From mobile 020 7981 3040
Website: www.ofcom.org.uk
Text 7726 to report spam texts
Only 5% of the UK public are aware that you can text 7726 to report spam texts directly to your network provider for free. It’s easy to remember too, as 7726 spells SPAM on your phone keypad.
The Ethical Marketing Charter was established by National Accident Helpline
We are using cookies to enhance your experience and by using this site you are agreeing to this Find out more about our cookie privacy policy
OK, Hide this message
