Barclays Bank is facing a furious backlash after it emerged it was paying customers to pretend to be blind or deaf to test staff over their approach to disabilities, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Disability charities accused Barclays of being ‘totally inappropriate’ over its ‘insult’ to disabled people after the firm hired research company Ipsos to find people to carry out more than 1,600 ‘vulnerable customer visits’ all over the UK.
These tasks pay ‘mystery shoppers’ £45 in return for visiting a branch either with real or acted-out disability issues, such as mobility problems, hearing or visual impairments, before filling in questionnaires evaluating how Barclays’ workers react.
The Barclays-branded instruction sheet says anyone signing up must have a current account with the bank – but can then ‘fabricate a back-story’ about how they became blind or deaf if necessary.
It reads: ‘You would ideally have a REAL visual impairment. However, you can fabricate this if needed.
‘Please note that for those using a fabricated back-story you must provide your feedback from the point-of-view of a customer with a real vulnerability.’
On the job advertisement for the scenario for how its staff treat blind or visually impaired mystery shoppers, the instructions from Barclays read: ‘You will speak to a member of staff to say your eyesight is becoming increasingly problematic and you are struggling to read statements and letters.
‘Although you wear glasses your eyesight is becoming increasingly blurry and / or spotty and the situation is not going to improve, so you are wondering how Barclays can help with your day-to-day banking.’
Barclays Bank is facing a furious backlash after it emerged it was paying customers to pretend to be blind or deaf to test staff over their approach to disabilities. Pictured: CS Venkatakrishnan, chief executive officer of Barclays
Andrew Hodgson (pictured), of the National Federation of the Blind UK (NFBUK), said: ‘This is totally inappropriate. Barclays’ move is an insult to all blind, deafblind and partially sighted people’
Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay Steve Darling, who is registered blind and has a guide dog, also rebuked Barclays
The job advert for the deaf customer role, which pays £45 for a single branch visit, reads: ‘To undertake this enquiry, you will ideally need to have a REAL “hard of hearing impairment”… however, you can fabricate this if needed.
‘Speak to a member of staff to say your hearing is becoming increasingly problematic and you are struggling to hear when speaking to an adviser.’
Ipsos told the Mail on Sunday, when asked for more details about how to ‘fabricate’ a disability, that some scenarios ‘take an awful lot of acting, so it has to be something you’re comfortable to do. If you’re not comfortable with doing it, we wouldn’t ask you to do it.’
But Andrew Hodgson, of the National Federation of the Blind UK (NFBUK), said: ‘This is totally inappropriate. Barclays’ move is an insult to all blind, deafblind and partially sighted people.
‘Why can’t they recruit blind people for research, so they truly get to understand the challenges and problems we are facing accessing financial services?
‘Nobody [else] can have genuine insight into our access needs, without the lived experience of being blind, deafblind or partially sighted.’
Mr Hodgson, who is blind and uses a white cane, added: ‘NFBUK is more than willing to cooperate and discuss with any banks our concerns to ensure financial services are accessible to us and that we can access them independently. We hope the bank gets in contact with us – we are ready to talk.’
Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay Steve Darling, who is registered blind and has a guide dog, also rebuked Barclays.
Disability charities accused Barclays of being ‘totally inappropriate’ over its ‘insult’ to disabled people after the firm hired research company Ipsos to find people to carry out more than 1,600 ‘vulnerable customer visits’ all over the UK
He said: ‘There’s more than enough people out there with genuine disabilities who’d be happy to step up.’
A Barclays spokesman said: ‘We are committed to providing all our customers with the best level of service.
‘We seek direct feedback from customers, colleagues, charity partners and undertake mystery shopper exercises using a specialist company to identify areas for improvement.
‘While we set out to find mystery shoppers with experience of impairments, we can do better and will look to do so immediately.’
