Adviser Ratings offers lure of free advice


Free financial advice is being used as the bait to draw consumers towards a new publication from Adviser Ratings.
Consumers are being asked to explain why they would be the best candidate for free advice in 50 words or less, outline how much wealth they have under management, along with contact details and their age.
Adviser Ratings principal, Angus Woods, said the competition winner will be able to choose one of 13 advisers from across Australia, who have been highly rated on the TripAdviser-esque website.
"This competition gives mums and dads a real chance to get life changing financial advice, with no strings attached, from one of the country's top financial planners," he said.
"Our competition is also part of our strategy to inform and engage consumers with the financial planning industry."
Under the competition's terms and conditions, the winner will receive free financial advice from the date they sign "a Statement of Advice with an adviser, so long as that Statement of Advice is signed before 30 June 2016. The financial adviser has the right to extend this date should he wish", and includes three face-to-face meetings with a financial adviser in a 12 month period, with the first meeting being the financial health check.
On its website, Adviser Ratings outlined how it will manage competition entrants' personal information in its ‘Privacy Policy', which included information regarding when it might disclose such data.
"Any personal information provided to us may also be disclosed, if appropriate, to other entities in order to facilitate the purpose for which the information was collected," Adviser Ratings said. "Such entities generally include:
- third party ‘partners' or affiliates with whom Adviser Ratings has a commercial relationship in order to provide you with the benefit of our services or to make available products or opportunities arising in respect of registering on our site; or
- third party service providers for the purpose of enabling them to provide a service, such as (but not limited to) payroll, superannuation administration, IT service providers, data storage, web-hosting and server providers, debt collectors;
- any related entity of Adviser Ratings;
- any applicable or relevant regulator or third party for the purpose of legislative or contractual compliance and/or reporting; or
- other entities if you have given your express consent.
"From time to time, these parties may reside outside Australia. Our contracts with these parties generally include an obligation for them to comply with Australian privacy law and this Privacy Policy. However, you acknowledge that, by agreeing to the disclosure of your personal information to these entities outside of Australia, we will no longer be required to take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient's compliance with the Australian privacy law in relation to your personal information and we will not be liable to you for any breach of the Australian privacy law by these overseas recipients. On this basis, you consent to such disclosure.
"If you conduct any transaction that requires a payment by you, some of your details may be provided to a third party payment processor to allow the transaction to be completed."
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