The reason is not right and the reason I believe its illegal is because when you are in a hospital bed you do not have the ability to walk away. Its not necessarily because your brain has gone because you have had a baby. Its because you are liable to be tired and more emotional than you would normally be and possibly simply be more concerned about more important things at that moment in time.
Trading standards state:
Aggressive commercial practices
7.—(1) A commercial practice is aggressive if, in its factual context, taking account of all of its features and circumstances—
(a)it significantly impairs or is likely significantly to impair the average consumer’s freedom of choice or conduct in relation to the product concerned through the use of harassment, coercion or undue influence; and
(b)it thereby causes or is likely to cause him to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.
(2) In determining whether a commercial practice uses harassment, coercion or undue influence account shall be taken of—
(a)its timing, location, nature or persistence;
(b)the use of threatening or abusive language or behaviour;
(c)the exploitation by the trader of any specific misfortune or circumstance of such gravity as to impair the consumer’s judgment, of which the trader is aware, to influence the consumer’s decision with regard to the product;
(d)any onerous or disproportionate non-contractual barrier imposed by the trader where a consumer wishes to exercise rights under the contract, including rights to terminate a contract or to switch to another product or another trader; and
(e)any threat to take any action which cannot legally be taken.
(3) In this regulation—
(a)“coercion” includes the use of physical force; and
(b)“undue influence” means exploiting a position of power in relation to the consumer so as to apply pressure, even without using or threatening to use physical force, in a way which significantly limits the consumer’s ability to make an informed decision.
They then go to and clarify a few things.
Significant Impairment or Limitation
8.5 The CPRs refer to practices that ‘significantly impair’ and those that ‘significantly limit’ decisions (the latter is in the definition of undue influence).These are likely to have a very similar meaning and both will depend on the context.
8.6 Significant impairment might occur when, for example, a trader stays in a consumer’s home for so long that they feel compelled to sign a contract for a product.
Freedom of choice or conduct
8.7 The concept of freedom of choice is not limited solely to decisions about whether to purchase a product or not. It covers a wide range of choices that are likely to impact on transactional decisions.
And then
BANNED PRACTICEs (sChEDULE 1)
(25) Conducting personal visits to the consumer’s home ignoring the consumer’s request to leave or not to return except in circumstances and to the extent justified to enforce a contractual obligation.
A door to door salesman visits a consumer to sell her some cleaning products. She tells him she is not interested and asks him to leave. He is determined to try and get her to change her mind and continues his sales pitch on her doorstep.This would breach the CPRs.
Giving false information to, or deceiving, customers
7.3A misleading action occurs when a practice misleads through the information it contains, or its deceptive presentation, and causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a different decision.
8.4 Undue influence is defined in regulation 7(3)(b) of the CPRs as:
‘exploiting a position of power in relation to the consumer so as to apply pressure, even without using or threatening to use physical force, in a way which significantly limits the consumer’s ability to make an informed decision’.
To spell out the problem here:
If you are in a hospital bed - whether you have had a baby or a hip replacement operation, you are in a position where the trader has a position of power over you, because you are a captive audience who is unable to walk away and my feel under undue pressure to give your details to them, just to get rid of them, particularly if they revisit on a daily basis or press saying "go on its free". This is exerting pressure in a situation where one party is more disadvantaged than normal. This is something you may never do in ordinary circumstances.
Approaching you for your personal data in a hospital bed for commercial reasons where they receive financial reward for selling your data in return for 'freebies' or marketing is an aggressive sales practice. Stuff from Bounty, is NOT free, if you are giving them your personal data and sign up to their 'club'.
If they are not EXPLICITLY stating what they are using the data for, they are potentially misleading you, as you may assume that are associated with the hospital in someway. It is NOT sufficient to state they are from Bounty and to expect women to know who and what Bounty are. Because of the setting of where this is done, there is an even higher risk that women may not realise what they are actually signing up to.
"Just saying no" under these circumstances may be something that women feel unable to do, despite normally giving sales people short shift. PRECISELY because they are exploiting a situation and using aggressive sales tactics
Bounty are not necessarily bad, but free access to women in this situation, does put women under undue pressure and makes them in some cases feel taken advantage of. You wouldn't let a stair lift sales person or a marketer for products for the elderly on a ward with people who have just had a hip replacement so why is this allowed? The system should be by request only in a ward, and preferably not on the ward at all, but perhaps in a side room or corridor where women can make a free unpressured choice to engage or not.