With reference to your article, Cold call eradication will stifle advisers in their quest for clients' (FA, 9 February), Mr Will Todd of Adviser Breakthough Group states that the ban will effectively stop advisers contacting clients when referred by a professional or other party. This should not be the case.
A cold call is when the prospective client is not expecting your call. In these cases I would expect the accountant or solicitor to have spoken to the client and obtained their permission to pass details to the adviser and for the adviser to call them. Indeed failing to do this and passing details could breach data protection in any case. Certainly that is what happens in the referrals I receive.
In this case the client has given express permission, knows who will be calling them and why. That is not a cold call and would not be covered by the ban.
Also clients visiting a website, such as Unbiased or VouchedFor, using that service to find an adviser and then sending details to that adviser through the website requesting a contact would also not be a cold call. The client has requested a specific firm or individual to contact them.
What is at risk are the services that take a client's details and then send them to an adviser. As the client has not requested a contact by a specific adviser that could be considered a cold call as they are not expecting a call from that person or firm. Those services may have to modify the way they operate in order to comply with the law.
Mr Todd's own business offers a confirmed appointment making service, if these appointments are the result of cold-calling or indirectly solicited call requests then they too will have to revisit their business model.
Darren Cooke
Chartered Financial Planner
Red Circle Financial Planning
South Normanton
Derbyshire
