Ghost of collateral-free loan ad haunts firm

A UAE-based bank’s commercial to promote collateral-free loans turned out to be a nightmare for a trading company in the country.

Suggestively titled ‘The Nightmares on Loan Street’, the commercial seemed to turn out to be so for the SME whose name was inadvertently used in the ad.

The commercial shows bankers levying high collateral charges that results in closing down a small company which failed to pay their high interest rates.

All good – only, the randomly-chosen name of the company that is forced to shut shop in the commercial does in fact belong to a fully functional Abu Dhabi-based trading firm that deals in Japanese products.

The firm maintains it is embarrassed to see its name appearing in bad light in the TV commercial.

The advertisement shows ghosts and vampires sucking the blood out of a small trading firm which did not read the fine print of the loan agreement.

The 'real' firm has been successfully operating from Abu Dhabi.

According to officials of the bank that ran the commercial, the ad did not have any reference to the firm, and the company name and logo used in the commercial were not the same.

Emirates 24|7 is in possession of a copy of the bank’s correspondence with the firm. The letter says: “XXX Bank truly empathises with you and would like to assure you that the referred commercial did not have any reference to your organisation.

“As you would note, the company name and logo used in the business loan commercial was not that of XXXXXX XXXXX.”

“However, we confirm that the commercials have been further amended to rule out any uncertainty,” it added.

An official of the trading firm said their company has been doing business without any problems and the ad showing a company with same name, but a different logo, has caused confusion among their customers and creditors.

“We were surprised to receive a number of phone calls and messages from our regular customers, who were curious to know whether our company was closed down or is facing the wrath of banks.

“That is when we realised that the same name appears in the bank’s commercials, running on YouTube as well as a local television channel,” said an official of the trading firm.

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