Trivial funeral insurance sales tactics exposed

Ms. Marika told Darwin's hearing committee Wednesday that English was her second language and that she thought the call was an investigation.

Later that day, another officer called him back. want a second insurance policy. "I can not do it again, you know, I can not have two," she said.

The seller replied, "Yeah, so that's what we do.We can actually help you cancel this policy."

Again, Ms. Markia said that she did not want more funeral insurance. "No, I, I'm happy with each other," she says, shortly before the end of the call.

But two weeks later, there was another call, and this time the seller kept it on the line. minutes.

"I told them I did not want to, I told them I already had one, but they seemed very insistent asking me to say yes," Marika said Wednesday.

Ms. Marika, who stopped working in 2015 because of a back injury, said that it was especially important for people to give her time when they spoke in English because She needed to translate it into her head.

Eventually, the company listed her for funeral insurance for her and her family. Later that month, the agent recalled her by asking her the names and contact information of any other person she knew, with the promise of vouchers

"Yeah, if you want to take a look at your directory, look, I'm just going to take everyone's name and number, and I could call them all today, and then we do not never know, if you have 30, you receive $ 600! ", the agent told him.

to cancel his policy, the company made it wait until a member of the "customer service" could call it back. This staff member convinced her to keep the policy on the promise next month would be free.

It was not until March 2016, when Ms. Marika asked NSW for legal aid that the company agreed to pay back $ 1890.34 in bonuses that she had Russell Howden , founder and general manager of BlueInc, owner of the business behind Let's Insure, said that funeral insurance sales to postal codes with a large number of Aboriginal people had seen a rise marked in 2015. Mr. Howden said the calls to Ms. Marika were "appalling", and the company blamed the rise in sales to Indigenous people for incentives for staff that included a Vespa scooter and three others. Rowena Orr QC's legal counsel asked Mr. Howden if aggressive selling tactics were another cause, and he responded that it "pushed our agents."

"All call centers will have productivity targets, and it is unfortunate that, as a result, this tip has occurred, "he said.