RBS has been warned about sending marketing emails to customers who have unsubscribed from the service following a complaint to the advertising watchdog.
A woman with a NatWest account complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after receiving two emails in May promoting the CashbackPlus scheme, querying whether the bank had her permission to give her details to a third party and pointing out that it had failed to unsubscribe her from its marketing database.
RBS, which owns NatWest, said the terms and conditions for the woman's account said the bank might share account holders' information with other members of the RBS Group or third parties providing services to the organisation, and customers could receive marketing information that might be of interest to them.
However NatWest confirmed that although the woman had opted out of all marketing communication, this was "captured incorrectly" on the bank's systems.
RBS said they had received a total of four complaints, including from the complainant to the ASA, and had identified 341 customers out of 500,000 who had unsubscribed but subsequently received CashbackPlus e-mails between February and May this year.
The error had now been fixed.
The ASA said the combination of errors was "unfortunate", adding it was concerned RBS had not complied with advertising regulations by sending marketing communication to consumers who had asked not to receive them, and that consumers were entitled to have their personal information suppressed.
It said: "We told RBS to ensure they did not send marketing communications to customers who had asked not to receive them, and to ensure that they suppressed customers' personal information from marketing databases when asked."
