The advertisement said people could discuss the offer with the bank. Sam did just that. In the discussion, the bank told her she would need to open a transactional account and have her income deposited into it to get the deal. Several days later, the bank told her she would have to go into a branch to do this.

Sam was unhappy because this later condition wasn’t mentioned in her first conversation and she thought she could open a new account and do everything by phone. She also thought the bank’s advertising was misleading because it didn’t specify a balance transfer would occur only after the transactional account was open.

Our investigation

We looked at the bank’s advertising and were satisfied it was not misleading. The advertisement said the bank would call anyone interested in the offer who didn’t have a transactional account. We did not think this gave the impression that everything could be done over the phone.

Outcome

Sam disagreed with our findings.