There’s a lot of it about at the moment and by that I mean Corporate Righteousness to an Aggrieved Public. Whether it’s the banks, excessive executive pay, MP’s expenses ... the list just seems to go on and on.
It got me thinking about the dilemma ( or hypocrisy ) being expressed by organisations, and not just large corporations , when on the one hand they speak of corporate social responsibility and traditional values ; whilst on the other hand they condone ( or promote ) practices which although perfectly legal contractually, actually offend the principles of individuals and the public majority.
And of course, the law does not help, nor should it be expected to. It is usually the case that ethics are not considered in law, in the sense that a contract is either enforceable or not ; as opposed to whether it is something that should have been contracted in the first place.
So what prompted this article ? Well, a damsel in distress actually. Someone who had agreed to a new telephone contract with a well known provider that included a minimum expenditure clause of three times what she had paid for the cost of her telephone calls in the previous year. And, you guessed it !
During the current year she spent virtually the same as she did the previous year and has now been presented with a “reconciliation” fee of about twice her annual telephone costs due to this agreement. An amount she has to pay of several hundred pounds . A payment of course for nothing... as no goods or services has actually been provided.
Various representations to the salesman, manager and head office of the company concerned ; the Telecoms Industry Ombudsman et al, have merely confirmed that the contract is enforceable and moreover that the senior management were happy to enforce it. Not just for this year by the way, but also for the remaining two years of this agreement ! Unfortunately, this is the current status of this case and there is no happy ending to report as yet to my damsel’s story.
So for me, we need to get “common sense” applied in these situations, because clearly the top honcho’s cannot be relied upon to exercise it and seem to be as much part of the problem rather than the solution. After all, which individual actually is responsible for owning and applying the corporate ethos when it comes right down to it ?
Perhaps part of the solution lies in the recent Corporate Manslaughter Legislation and I don’t mean string ‘em up and hang ‘em, although that might appeal to some. What is being attempted here, in the face of public outcry against repeated failings to hold anyone accountable in large organisations for accidents involving multiple fatalities, is to apply a test of reasonableness to individuals for their decisions. The test, as determined by laymen, is whether or not the individual acted or should have acted in a reasonable way given the prevailing circumstances and organisational context.
If something like this was also in place for consumer contracts and the costs of my damsel’s telephone calls, then we would be able to discuss the real issue of whether it was reasonable or not to offer her a revised telephone contract in the first place, based upon her tripling her telephone costs. So should it be caveat emptor or caveat venditor or both that applies ... what’s your call ?
