The Office has been inspecting offers of insurance complaint bureaus since the second half of 2017. At that time, advertisements arose encouraging people who had insurance capital policies to apply for a refund of liquidation fees.
As a result, UOKiK levelled charges against six entities, including four insurance complaint bureaus, relating to the use of abusive clauses and practices that violate the collective interests of consumers.
Observations made by UOKiK show that newspapers publish articles that may look like a neutral text, but in fact they could be an advertisement of a law firm or insurance complaint bureau. This is why the President of UOKiK sent letters to several entities in which he requires them to mark advertisements and announcements appropriately.
“It is not enough to say that some material was created in cooperation with the company XY or that entrepreneur so-and-so is a publishing partner to some issue. It must be clear that announcements and advertisements do not constitute editorial content. I call upon publishers to develop standards of properly marking promotional materials”, adds Marek Niechciał, President of UOKiK.
