No credit Vacuum firm penalised for hard sales tactics
ABRISTOL-BASED company hard-selling vacuum cleaners treated its potential customers so unfairly, it has been banned from giving credit – and won’t even be allowed to claim the money people still owe.
In an unusual case which has rumbled on for years, the Bristol firm Premier Finance International, was made the subject of an order by the Financial Conduct Authority because of the cold-calling, hard-selling tactics of its salespeople.
PF International was the South West’s franchise for selling American vacuum cleaner brand Kirby, which is only sold door-to-door and usually with salespeople offering to undertake free demonstrations in the home.
The American firm Kirby has long maintained that it is not responsible for the conduct of the companies that sell its products, in the face of controversy over their tactics both in the US and in Britain.
After scores of complaints about PF International’s sales tactics from Bristol and the wider West Country, the city council’s Trading Standards department joined forces with the regional South West Trading Standards to investigate.
The Trading Standards teams were unable to pursue criminal action against the business, but instead went to the FCA, the Government’s official financial watchdog, to see what action it could take.
The FCA issued its first Supervisory Notice at the end of July 2018, and a second on November 20, 2018.
PF International appealled each time, but now, the FCA has successfully applied to the Upper Tribunal to strike out the latest appeal and give the firm nowhere else to go to save its business model.
The Bristol firm sold and serviced vacuum cleaners in the South West.
“Staff of PF International went door-to-door using cold call visits and high-pressure sales techniques with vulnerable consumers, in clear violation of a requirement on its permissions and the FCA’s principle of treating customers fairly,” said an FCA spokesperson.
“The firm also failed to carry out adequate affordability checks on customers’ ability to repay the credit and entered into credit agreements with customers even though customers had told them that they could not afford to pay,” she added.
Bristol City Council’s trading standards said they had a long list of complaints about the sales tactics of PF International. A trading standards spokesperson said they had even targeted people living in residential homes, who would not need a vacuum cleaner, and in some cases had managed to charge people more than £2,500, and then as a further twist sell other goods and services, cleaning products and servicing agreements.
Threads on consumer websites and review pages date back to 2009 detailing complaints about PF International making unsolicited phone calls to begin the sales pitch, and knocking door to door to arrange free demonstrations of the Kirby products.
Mark Steward, the executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said they worked closely with the city and regional trading standards teams to try to tackle the firm.
“We intervened early with this firm in order to prevent further harm to vulnerable customers,” he said.
A spokesperson for the FCA said the decision by the Upper Tribunal – the highest financial disputes case in the land – to strike out the firm’s last chance of appeal meant that PF International will no longer be allowed to conduct any regulated activity, including recovering any regulated debts owed to it.