Youi prosecutions carry strong lesson

When the Commerce Commission called out insurer Youi for 15 ‘‘representative’’ cases of reprehensible misconduct, it was one of the more significant prosecutions of recent years.

The company indicated it will plead guilty to the charges which include that its sales staff made false or misleading claims during phone calls.

As with many cases of this sort, it is chastening in hindsight to see just what some of these clowns were, at least for a time, getting away with.

Like getting people to accept, somehow, that they needed to provide their bank or credit card details to generate just a policy quote.

If that wasn’t, in itself, nearly Nigerian methodology, the downstream problems were also shaming for any company with ambitions to be a long-term presence in any society.

Youi staff issued unsolicited policies.

People had their accounts debited without their knowledge, let alone their express permission.

In other cases, people received letters asserting the company’s right to payment for the unwanted policies.

Those who cried bullshit - and you can bet not everyone did - report having to fight hard to get their money back.

The company says it has cooperated with the commission [the commission agrees it has] and has swiftly changed its sales processes.

It would also have us know that these repudiated behaviours were never part it ‘‘standard operating procedures’’.

The charges the commission has brought against Youi relate to behaviour during the year and a-half to February 2016, so this could hardly be regarded as a brief spasm of misbehaviour.

How many reproachful complaints had this now-penitent company been able to quietlyenough absorb during that time?

Recent reports from Australia suggest the unethical behaviour is linked, primarily, not to any specific training in bastardry but to the sales system.

It’s one in which staff commissions rely not on a staffer’s own sales numbers, but on how many more sales than their workmates they have.

For many of us, dealing with people in phone conversations is a more agreeable, less daunting way to go about things than poring over paperwork.

Clearly, however, dealing with Youi on the phone has at least sometimes been a marathon test of stamina in which cajoling can in time give way to hectoring.

Such are the traps that from time to time present themselves.

Youi, having proven an ugly trapper indeed, has much to live down. How scrupulous it must now be.