Marketeers using celebrities such as Esther Rantzen, June Whitfield, Cilla Black and Gloria Hunniford have come under fire recently.

Rantzen fronts ads for the Accident Advice Helpline, which benefits from unsolicited and illegal spam texts to mobile phones, according to an investigation of ambulance chasing by the Sunday Telegraph.

And Whitfield, Black and Hunniford have backed insurance policies that have turned out to be very bad buys for some.

Consumers need to ask themselves whether the use of a trusted name is to hide an untrustworthy company, or bad product.