In June of this year, NSI launched the ‘Wall of Shame’; a dedicated page on the NSI website to publicise the names of organisations who falsely claim to be NSI approved. The initiative has been warmly welcomed by the industry, prompting much positive feedback and discussion.
NSI has a high success rate in addressing misuse of logo complaints. Through direct contact with those making misrepresentations and with the assistance of Trading Standards and the Advertising Standards Authority, most misuse of logo issues are addressed and rectified quickly and co-operatively. The ‘Wall of Shame’ seeks to address those more persistent offenders.
It is a testament to the profile of the NSI brand that a number of organisations providing services in the security and fire sectors falsely claim to be NSI approved, highlighting the commercial advantages that can be gleaned from displaying the NSI badge. However, this is clearly not acceptable, as it is misleading for end users and is unfair on those genuine organisations that invest the time and resource in maintaining their NSI approval by submitting themselves to regular and robust NSI audits.
NSI takes this matter very seriously and by continuing to strictly monitor and ‘name and shame’ these falsely-claiming companies, NSI hopes to protect the end users as well as NSI approved companies.
The NSI ‘Wall of Shame’ initiative has been welcomed by the industry in general. To date, this initiative has prompted more responses across NSI social media pages and groups than any other topic. It has also been positively referenced in a number of public forums.
Chris Pinder, External Affairs Director for NSI explained, “We wanted to demonstrate to our approved companies, and the end-users, that we take abuse of the NSI logo extremely seriously. Those who hold NSI approval have worked hard to achieve it and are justly proud of the badge. We wanted to demonstrate to them that we will do all in our power to prevent any dilution in the value of the NSI badge.”
Chris continued, “It will be a measure of our success if the numbers of companies listed on the Wall of Shame are kept to a minimum.”
NSI encourages approved companies, the industry and the public to report any instances of companies falsely proclaiming NSI approval or misrepresentation. The Wall of Shame email address provides the facility for this to be reported This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Visit the NSI Wall of Shame web page.
