Beth+Aiken

Queries: Barclay’s customers with low credit approvals will be put through to Indian call centres. Thousands of struggling bank customers will be connected to Indian call centres while more affluent account holders will get one in Britain. A new banking phone system will identify those with low credit approvals and put them through to India. Those who have considerable savings or a credit limit that allows them to borrow around £500 from the bank or buy its products will be connected to a British operator. Bosses hope the new line will filter out their customers who do not have the money to buy the bank’s products so their British staff will potentially be able to sell to every caller. Barclays is testing the system and call centre staff have been briefed that it will start on April 1. One Barclays sales executive said: ‘Before we had people ringing up who have been overdrawn, so we could not sell them anything.’
 * 'Apartheid** **’ call system filters out poor Barclays clients**

Critics say the bank is only interested in people with cash and not the genuine concerns of millions who have queries about the state of their finances. Eddy Weatherill of the Independent Banking Advisory Service said: ‘This is an apartheid system and certainly preferential to their wealthier customers. ‘This is not intended to give the best advice, but a chance to make more money.’ Barclays was one of the few banks to not borrow from Public funds during the banking crisis last year. A spokesman said: ‘Customers will speak to different teams in different locations depending upon the nature of their query.’

//This article is from the “Daily Mail”, a British newspaper. Its main audience is people from not very wealthy backgrounds who are not necessarily well read. The Daily Mail is known to favor sensational and shocking news, so I am not positive that this article is completely accurate.// //This article is about Barclays, a huge bank, who will be introducing a call system to sell more of the banks products.// //I have highlighted in pink all of the words and phrases that make this article biased.// //The most emotive word in this article is “apartheid”. It is used first in the headline and then again in a quote from the Independent Banking Advisory Service. The word apartheid brings to mind the grossly unfair, racial discrimination system in which existed in South Africa separating the blacks from the whites. This word is completely inappropriate. If this article is even true, the unfairness is not nearly as bad as it was in South Africa.// //Other emotive words are also used such as “struggling Barclays clients”, in favor of the poor to appeal to the audience. It makes the call system seem even more unfair.// //The journalist over exaggerates the number of clients being neglected. At the start of the article there are “thousands” of customers, but at the end of the paragraph there are “millions”.// //The fifth paragraph uses the word “filter”. This gives the impression that the bank sees their customers as unwanted foreign objects.// //Finally, critics have accused Barclays of being “only interested” in clients that have lots of money. This is an unfair generalization.// //The bank explains that the system does not direct customers’ calls to different teams depending on the amount of money in their accounts, but because of the type of question they have asked. This article was only published just before spring break. I am sorry I do not have a link to the site that this article came from because the page has expired.//