This should make you squirm, but it probably won't

Steve Priest (steve@integrityII.com) is President of Integrity Insight International.

What would you do if you were an ethics/compliance professional, and…

  1. Your company’s most profitable product is promoted to the poor and poorly educated. This product would be profitable on its own, but it’s amazingly profitable when customers aren’t able to pay for it within agreed-upon terms and have to pay huge extra fees to renew the contract. Most customers have to renew. One of your firm’s employees reports unfair treatment of customers through your helpline.

  2. Your company launched a product with the promise to save millions of lives. By so doing, it would also reap billions of dollars in profits. You receive a report into your hotline that alleges that, in fact, this product was aimed at young people who were not in high-risk categories before, but are now facing high rates of addiction and disease.

  3. Your very large nonprofit negotiates discounted rates with other organizations to provide services. When individuals want these services on their own, many have to pay rates significantly higher than those negotiated by large corporations. If these individuals use the nonprofit’s services and are unable to pay on time, they are often pursued by collection agencies, driving some to bankruptcy and others to suicide. One of your nonprofit’s employees comes to you, distraught about a suicide committed by a person who had recently received service from your organization.

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