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You may have noticed that when people advertise in the hopes of attracting us to their products they bombard us with seals of approval, accreditations and quality assurance marks. All these are to dispel our fears from an unknown company to assure us of their standards and trustworthiness. Some of them are indeed worthwhile but some can be meaningless in the scheme of things.
To take Codes of Practice as an example. We often think that those companies who's industry has a code of practice means that all companies within this industry would adhere to these. But it's not so. Codes of practice are run on a voluntary basis therefore you don't have to adhere to it whatsoever. So I wonder what the point is. If you're going to have a Code of Practice then you may as well enforce it so consumers are not confused and mislead.
Good traders probably don't need a Code of Practice as they will already be following good principles. It is the bad traders that need them and if they are bad they probably won't adhere to them anyway. Codes of Practice although originally set up for the right reasons will eventually mean nothing to the savvy public who get wiser all the time about marketing and public relations ploys. The worry is the public then ignore them as meaningless tricks and they will carry no weight.
There are some codes of practices connected to companies who specialise in Home Equity Release Plans. I get asked for advice all the time about these as to their pros and cons. Lots of people take these out not realising the full implications of what it means and are bamboozled by the marketing and terms and conditions behind these types of schemes. The main issue is that people don't realise that the money they take out now is a loan and the loan debt builds up over time. The amount you pay back could be considerably more than you released. So much so that there is very little left inheritance wise to leave to your nearest and dearest from the sale of your home.
Under the new Unfair Commercial Practices Regulations all companies who state they have a code of practice must now follow their code of practice without fail. If they don't then Trading Standards can look into the matter and decide on what action to take. While these new regulations are meant to be added power to the consumer I'm afraid it's looking like they are only added power to Trading Standards. Lets hope Trading Standards will step up to the mark and do the right thing by the consumer.
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