Martin on Radio 5 this morning and the banks

I agree that people who fail to manage their money correctly should not be let off the hook but the example above is sheer theft - nothing less

I always thought Theft was taking something without the owners consent.

Going overdrawn without first getting consent is Theft.

The Bank charging you in accordance with the Terms and Conditions that you consented to is not.

Yes the charges are onerous, discraceful, way out of context, and in excess of what is required, but there is only one party guilty of theft, and it is not the Banks (this time)

I wonder how many of those advocating banks working on cost only basis, would be happy if someone pitched up and wanted to borrow their car and insisted its morally wrong to charge more than the petrol costs. If people take the banks money in the form of a loan it should be down to the bank to decide how much it charges. Banks are commercial organisations designed to make a profit - they are not social services hardship fund!

Let me get this correct in my head?

The banks have won a victory which reinforces the principle of moral hazard on their customers.

All well and good then.

Hmm, and their customers, many of them who are taxpayers, have generously donated a massive unplanned overdraft to the banks last October, thereby undermining the Banks approach to moral hazard themselves.

It's a funny ole world innit.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Nonsense.

Nobody was "trapped" into anything. Nobody forced anyone to sign up for an account or to use it for direct debits.

The charges for misusing an account are clear. It's part of the contract you agree to when you take the account.

If you cannot live with them, then do not use the account. USe manual payments instead.

I'm not defending people who go overdrawn, get DDs rejected etc and get charged they should as you say read the T&C's.

BTW, I thought if a DD was called and not paid you weren't charged by the bank - that was the case with my daughter's bank - you might incur late payment charges for the bill you were paying - but there was no charge from the bank.

On the subject of T&C's sometimes the banks don't stick to them - the said daughter a few years ago was on benefits - paid 2 weekly - managed fine until the day the benefit payment and the DDs fell on the same day - not a problem you might think - but it was a problelm - the DDs were paid by the bank but that put her into overdraft for about 4 hours - she had no overdraft facility.

She didn't realise that DD's were taken at midnight and payments into the account happened at about 4am - she also had a basic bank account at the time - they apparently aren't allowed to have an overdraft - except when it suits the bank - the best thing for her would have been for the bank not to pay the DDs and for that month she could have made a manual payment for her bills that were due on that day. And she would have had no charges - but they did pay and she had charges she wasn't aware of until a month or so later. There was no indication online that she had been overdrawn.

She paid the charges obviously - and hasn't tried to claim them back.




.

Going overdrawn without first getting consent is Theft.

The problem I have with this is that the banks never used to allow customers to exceed their agreed overdraft limits and any one who tried would find that their cheque bounced. No problem.

Now, the banks are often willing to allow unauthorised overdrafts and happily pile on fees when this happens. If they ceased this practice, there would be a lot fewer problems but they won't because it's far too lucrative.