First Direct - Temporary Suspension

dbm44 · 17-08-04

Just found this in the CJ Mail system in case anyone misses it :-

Recently First Direct have been the subject of some unwanted publicity. A financial Journalist has has been encouraging people to open a current account online to receive the free £25 gift. This is attracting unwanted customers who are merely opening an account with a tiny sum. These are obviously not the type of customers first direct want to attract. We will be temporarily deactivating the program at the close of play on Wednesday 18th August. We realise that this is short notice, but we hope you can understand the urgency of this matter. The campaign will start again on the 1st September.

First Direct would like to apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused. We value the commitment in the past and will greatly appreciate your co-operation and look forward to continuing activity from September onwards.

Kind Regards,

Kevin McGarr
PHD Media Ltd

Shane · 17-08-04

hmmm can understand the reasoning behind it but errm bit short notice to say the least.

I suppose we can stand a two week lay off as long as progam's future is secured by it.

bit of a poor situation tho

HeresJonny · 17-08-04

I heard this chap on the radio ... http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/

Jon

Supercod · 17-08-04

Quote:

Originally posted by Shane
I suppose we can stand a two week lay off as long as progam's future is secured by it.

Echo

shame it had to happen but rather see it pulled for 2 weeks than pulled forever.

Wardy · 17-08-04

Yes, very annoying.
It does seem strange though to suspend the program as it's not us who are sending the "dodgy" customers. It's a shame that they can't have a temperary seperate landing page for affiliates, or even carry the program on and let us send customers as I'm sure some will still convert. Oh well...

Cheers
Wardy

stenning · 22-08-04

Another example of how not to run an affiliate scheme, punish affiliates that do a good job because of a few select affiliates that dont.

Shane · 22-08-04

"punish affiliates that do a good job because of a few select affiliates that dont"

hmm can't say as I strictly agree with you on that one, First Direct are a bit selective in the first place so there shouldn't be any bad affiliates on there methinks.

sure it's not good that they pulled it for a couple of weeks but if something isn't proving financially beneficial then the long term viability is in danger.

Ideally they should have removed any mention of it from the site but knowing that people use google etc. loads to search, then they probably figured that users will search the "£25 natwest offer" etc out.

Aint good but at least they haven't spat the dummy out and pulled it altogether.

stenning · 22-08-04

Okay, thanks for your comments, so the "financial Journalist" was not an affiliate then?

If not, i retract my comments and thank shane for pointing this out.

Wardy · 01-09-04

It's back, can't spot the £25 sign up offer anymore. Maybe that will be introduced again at a later date.

Ccheers
Wardy

harris1 · 02-09-04

Yep they have killed promotion of the £25 deal by the looks of it. It’s still on their site though if you look on the app info page. A & L have killed their cash intro deal completely recently, obviously First Direct no longer wants affiliates to push this angle.

At the end of the days it’s that much hassle moving an account they have to incentivise. Once they have the punter they are pretty much there for life. They make so much money over the life time of a customer even £25 + commission is the best deal they are ever going to get in terms of advertising.

What does this say to me? They don’t want to do business on the net. I bet they keep the emphasis on the £25 incentive for their direct marketing......

aclarke656 · 03-09-04

Got a mailshot yesterday pushing the £25 deal, no strings, no catch... and valid until 31/12/04 which says you could sign up at firstdirect.com.

firstdirect.com now states you have to get your salary paid into the bank account to get your £25. However they won't have a leg to stand on if people say they visited after getting the mailshot.

All this seems like a ill thought out knee jerk reaction to this "moneysavingexpert" radio broadcast. This guy actively promotes people to exploit offers in order to do over big business, and gets constant free advertising via all his tv "in crowd" appearances.

The site is funded via moneysupermarket affy links, and is also used to promote his book, imploring visitors to make it a bestseller, whilst styling himself as some kind of consumer vigilante.

Firstdirect and other financial companies who might be next in the firing line might wish to consider if moneysupermarket should continue to support that sites attitude towards exploiting loopholes.

In the meantime they should give the affiliates who displayed the first direct £25 incentive without promoting missuse the chance to carry on as before.