ANZ debt collectors, including a staff member in management, were behind the creation of a fake Facebook profile they used to try to get information from bad credit customers.
The Age revealed that Melbourne collections staff had created the false persona, named ''Max Bourke'', on the social networking site in order to find people with outstanding personal loans and credit card debt. Max, with 81 friends, was made to look like a real person - it included a photo of a man running on a beach and listed his hobbies as football and poker but failed to mention ANZ. Through this fake profile, they observe their borrowers' activities and daily life as part of their analysis.
What do you think about this ANZ's strategy? To me, creativity is essential for business success, however within limit! Allowing business to use what people value as relationship and turns it into $, treating human as a number of their profit, is it ethical?
To me, I think it is quite unethical for ANZ to do this.
ReplyDeleteHow would you feel if you found out that someone has just tricked you to get accepted as a friend so he/she can track you down for the debt information.
I don't think this is a good idea for ANZ in the longer term, as this will damage the brand's image if people start to know that this 'Max Bourke' guy is fake.
totally agree.
ReplyDeletepurely ethical creation leads to successful long-term investment. this is priority to changing in ANZ strategy!