AVO Bank, which distributed advertisements promising to give each client 250,000 sums, was fined. The reason is that, according to the competition committee, citizens who believe this advertisement and become bank customers cannot transfer the promised money directly to their accounts. The committee also fined Ipotekabank for inappropriate advertising.
AVO Bank (formerly Uzagroexportbank) was found to have violated advertising legislation and was fined.
According to the Competition Committee, the committee received a complaint about the spread of false advertising for the services provided by this bank.
In the application, in the advertising information on the “AVO bonuses” page of the bank’s website “250,000 sums to each new client”, “+250,000 sums to you and each new AVO client”, “Receive 250,000 sums to your account” and “Receive 250,000 sums to your card” such information is displayed, but the bank will not give 250,000 sums to each new client, the client of the bank must perform certain actions to receive bonuses in the form of this money, and even so the client is given 250,000 sums, it is reported that the funds will not be presented in cash, but in the form of bonus points via the bank’s mobile application.
According to the conducted research, an advertisement with the content “AVO – the most convenient mobile bank in Uzbekistan” was placed on the official website of AVO Bank. 1 bonus point equal to 1 amount is provided by the bank for each new client, at the discretion of the client these bonuses can be exchanged for cash or used as payment for bank services For this reason in advertisements “Earn 250,000 soum for each new client”, “50,000 soum for each referral”, “Earn 250,000 soum per account number” expressions in the content are used. However, customers cannot transfer these funds directly to their accounts.
At the same time, during the additional study of advertising information distributed by this bank in the mass media and external advertising media, a number of shortcomings were revealed.
With this in mind, “AVO Bank” in connection with signs of violation of the requirements of Article 16, Part 1 of the Act “On Advertising” and Article 6, Part 1 of the Act “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” as a result of the violation of the legal requirements for advertising and protection of consumer rights was, according to the official communication decided to impose a financial fine against JSC.
The amount of the fine was not disclosed.
The Office for the Protection of Consumer Rights also fined Ipotekabank for disseminating inappropriate advertising.
