Facua has filed a complaint against ING before the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and Agenda 2030, considering that the entity has not respected a commercial campaign sent on August 10 by email to its customers. In that message, the bank indicated that if they made purchases with a credit card for amounts "equal to or greater than 100 euros," it would reimburse them 10%, with a cap of 60 euros, as detailed by the organization in a statement released this Wednesday.
In the first email, ING detailed the conditions of the promotion and gave as an example that, for a spending of 500 euros, it would refund 50 euros. It was also specified that the payment would be made on September 5 and that the offer would remain active until August 28.
Shortly after, the entity sent a second communication in which it acknowledged an "operational incident in the sending" of the first message and claimed that the promotion "was not active." After this change of criteria, Facua sent a letter to the bank warning that if it did not respect the announced conditions, it would file a complaint with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs.
Finally, on August 31, ING contacted its customers again to inform them that it would apply the promotion, but restricting its validity until August 14 instead of the August 28 initially communicated. In this way, the offer was limited to only four days.
Facua argues that the bank is obliged to maintain the conditions of the commercial offer sent on August 10, including its duration until August 28, and that it cannot unilaterally modify them to the detriment of consumers who received the email and could legitimately rely on it.
In legal terms, the association relies on Article 61 of Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16, which establishes that "the content of the offer, promotion or advertising, the specific benefits of each good or service, the legal or economic conditions and guarantees offered shall be enforceable by consumers and users, even if they are not expressly stated in the contract entered into or in the document or receipt received and must be taken into account in determining the principle of conformity with the contract."
At the same time, Facua emphasizes that the entity generated in its clients an expectation of economic benefit that must be addressed. "It may have even caused many of them to incur expenses higher than those they had planned induced by the offer they received," they point out, and criticize that "a supposed technical or internal incident cannot automatically become a way for the company to disregard the commitments it communicated to its clients."
For all these reasons, the organization has requested the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and Agenda 2030 to initiate a sanctioning file against ING for violating the rights of consumers by limiting the promotion to August 14 and not maintaining it until the 28th, as stated in the first email.
Likewise, Facua encourages users who received the offer to demand that the bank fulfill it under the announced terms and reminds them that they can turn to the association for advice on how to defend their rights as consumers.