Scottish Water warned over ‘misleading’ letters

Consumer Focus Scotland found that more than half of people who received such a letter believed the information was sent from the public water provider, not commercial firm HomeServe, and warned that householders could be duped into believing the adverts for new policies were actually a bill. The unsolicited letters advertise HomeServe’s cover for broken or leaking water supply pipes. But the company displays the Scottish Water logo – for which it pays an undisclosed sum every year – at the top of the document. The watchdog, which branded the practice “deeply concerning”, started investigating in October after receiving 69 complaints in five years. “We consider it unacceptable for Scottish Water branding to be used to gain consumer trust for a particular product offered by a commercial organisation,” said the report. “We strongly recommend that Scottish Water’s branding should be minimised or removed on all relevant literature and websites and HomeServe branding made more prominent.” Douglas Sinclair, chairman of the watchdog, said: “Consumers expect to be able to trust information from their public services. It is unacceptable people will have received a letter they think is from Scottish Water but is in fact a carefully crafted sales tactic by a private insurance firm.” He added: “This also raises an important point about whether public services should endorse any one private firm. Hard-pressed households need to be able to make informed choices, and the needs of and risk to vulnerable people should be at the heart of the debate.” When interviewed for the report, householders described the letters as “misleading” and accused HomeServe of “hiding the costs”. HomeServe suspended telesales operations across the UK late last year, due to concerns it may be mis-selling products. However, it has since resumed mail marketing and reopened some inbound sales calls, but outbound sales remain suspended as staff are retrained with new scripts. A HomeServe spokesman said it had reviewed its literature sent to householders. A spokesman for Scottish Water said: “Scottish Water asked HomeServe to make our relationship clear to customers on mailings. The rolling out last autumn of dual-branding, where the Scottish Water logo is combined with the HomeServe logo, was part of the move to clarify things for customers. “Further work to improve the clarity of literature has been carried out since then.”