Bank Charges - illegal?

Tim_L

Mark7799 wrote:

One of the first rules I was taught is always assume money has left your account the minute you spend it and never assume money due is with you until you see it on your account.

I don't disagree that reasonable money management is beneficial. However most people don't do it but rely on instant balance statements, and the underlying point is that banks exploit these people shamelessly with extortionate charges.

JasonW_2

Doing them manually still doesnt make them legal though does it? So the poor banks have apparently wasted their money paying people to apply charges Aye right, I'm sure most of them are automated and that's obviously just a defence they have fabricated to try to put you off.

J

dchurch24

Well - each to their own - some people choose to be brainwashed, others choose to be a Winston Smith and fight back at what they see to be unfair and opressive.

When my partner asked when the cheque that she deposited (roughly £300) would clear, she was told that it would clear the following Wednesday - when she checked her balance on the Wednesday, sure enough it looked like the cheque had been cleared - it hadn't - instead Dell had not taken the money, so the balance was £300 more than it should have been (if the cheque had cleared - which it hadn't). So her balance to all intensive purposes (and indeed from the information levied by the bank and Dell) looked roughly correct. We are not that anal that we know to the penny how much money is in our accounts - without boasting, I get a large wage packet and have several income streams, so generally this doesn't bother us (not like it used to, and that's when the chips were down and the bank (Abbey) put the boot in with the charges, hence my input into this thread).

Sadly, my partners psychic ability had left her that day, and therefore was not able to detect the lie in the bank tellers voice and assumed she had been told the truth by her fiduciary trustee - (which in itself would be a legal requirement and in THEIR T&C's - fine when they break them eh sceptics?).

I would suggest that this would be an easy 'mistake' to make, due to the lies and delays with payment from yet another large organisation - if they had informed her that payment would take 3 weeks then fine - we would have left the money there and would have known that the cheque hadn't cleared when (g)Abbey said it would.

Also, to alternate the methods of payment that you accept from month to month is simply very bad business practice - customers do not know where they are. I WILL NOT have direct debit anymore, simply because you cannot trust the people taking the money, or the bank to pay them. DD's are the single most catalistic means of forcing people into more debt - trust me - since I haven't used DD's anymore, we know where we are financially - apart from when banks/companies pull these sorts of stunts.


How anyone defends this sort of action is incredible.

This is the 21st century - not the 15th (I said it before and I'll say it again - in the 1200's the Knights Templars could 'cash' a 'cheque' instantly, have a look at Wikipedia if you doubt me).

I program computers for a living, and if I wrote systems that were as inefficient as the Banks (or indeed anyone that holds on to your money for any period of time) - at least from a customers point of view - then I would hope (and I mean that too) to be sacked quickly.

Sadly, from the banks point of view, the systems are VERY efficient - at extracting money from people in dubious and underhand ways - it's all very clever. BACS are the same, and the Banks play on it. For example, did you know that if you had more than one DD or SO coming out of your account in one day, the bank would process them in order of highest value first? This of course maximises the likelyhood of you not having funds to pay some of the smaller ones and therefore more will 'bounce' resulting in you incurring a charge? Sympathetic? Responsible? I think not!

Indeed, banks and large processing houses were the same in Sweden. The Govt. there asked them to voluntarily 'clean up their act' in as much as 'clearing' taking hours instead of days (or weeks in some cases). They had 6 months. The banks there were as arrogant as ours are here - and blatently ignored the Govt. - so legislation was passed which required them to do it within 3 months - they then did it.

Sadly for us, in Sweden the Government actually runs the country - here, it is the banks job - or at least that's how it has become.

Let's not be under any pretention here - Banks do this sort of thing to hold on to your money for as long as possible; even if they don't invest it properly (and I bet they do!), they still make the 3.4% libor rate overnight, including weekends which are not *working* days. Couple that with holding on to it, just that little bit longer than they should, causing you grief and hopefully involving you incuring charges of dubious legality and hey presto - you have the best performing banks in Europe!

At the same time of course, you also have the largest personal debt problem in Europe - a coincidence? - perhaps. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think I can see a direct link.

Now, if I could choose how I was paid by my employer - which of course I have no legal right to do since 1986 - I would choose to be paid in cash and keep it in a shoebox under my bed, taking my chances with the 'honest' thieves - indeed, when I am paid for other jobs, I try and insist on cash (don't worry - I declare everything and pay my taxes properly, I just don't trust banks in the slightest). My rolling salary though, HAS to be paid into a bank account (or building society, but you try and get a Nationwide account - the staff couldn't spell my name (it's a typical British name and only 5 letters!!), lost my ID, etc.... I gave up in the end, life is just too short to attempt to open a Nationwide account these days).

I would open a Girobank or PO account - only those are just Citibank in sheeps clothing (and in the case Of Girobank, non-existant). There is a PO account, but only to have benefits paid into (which the Govt, in it's adverts about having benefits paid into your bank directly, declined to mention...hhhmmmm?).

So in effect, I am forced to use theiving self-regulatory, self-congratulating, law flouting faceless organisations that laugh at the OFT (a group that should be protecting us from this outragous flouting of the law and unfair practice - hence the name Office of FAIR trading).

So, in essence a firm to which I promise money to can take it when they like. If they promise money to me, then I should be able to take it when I like - of course, when Abbey owed me 2k, I took it the moment they gave it to me - should I have waited 3 weeks? Indeed, I suppose I could have stated that all they did was to provide me with a piece of paper with numbers on it - a cheque. This is not how I requested the money. Maybe I should have not taken it and taken my case to court. Would the judge have seen that as me not accepting or them not paying?

Why should they have one rule and we have another?

I think one thing that proves this way of thinking is the fact that I started the BAG forum 6 weeks ago and we now get 4-5k hits per day, and have over 770 registered users - all of which have been pushed into debt in this way - no-one willingly spends money they haven't got (at least for the most part - when Abbey were dipping into my account when they felt like it - I felt a compulsion to get to it before they reaped it so that I could buy shoes for my children. This is not a heart-string tugger - this happened).

Yet there are some people who have been brainwashed into thinking that this is the way things should be. I have lived in France and Australia and this does not happen there - in fact there are laws that prevent this sort of thing from happening - especially in France. Yet the banks make money, and in Frances case battle with us for the 4th largest economy in the world.

Australia, I belive is now heading this way too. Capitilism does not work - look at America. America will be the shortest lived 'empire' the world has ever seen - also the most violent (in modern, 'civilised' times at least) and the most debt ridden (personal).

Also, just a quick note about the 'manual intervention' when it comes to applying charges. According to Which! 1 in 5 bank account holders are subject to these charges - that means , with 30 million accounts, there are 6 million people's account being looked at every month by bank employees. Really? Yeah, ok. If you say so. Why then, when I have made DPA requests to these banks asking for this personal information - for that is what it is if someone has manually adjusted or looked into MY finances - has the request been either ignored or fobbed off with the 'Sensitive Information' answer? If it is the case, then prove it - that is all I have asked for - yet they ALL seem very shady and closed-shop about it when you ask for information that you are legally entitled to. Odd. If it really did cost them that £35 or there was some human intervention, then why not show it and shut the 770 members of the BAG forum up. Why just pay the money and hope they all go away?

Did they charge extra interest when they took the money out later?

What do you think? Of course they did. This sort of thing doesn't happen by 'accident' - if a company the size of Dell's computers really were 'down' for 3 weeks, I think they might have some serious trouble conducting business. ;-)


Anyway - rant over. I need to get these things off of my chest once in a while.

Curry_Queen

I think my earlier comments may have been misconstrued slightly, in that it appears from some of the comments that I may have been mistaken as siding with the banks over all this, which isn't the case at all!

I'm totally on your side, and applaud your actions and outstanding work you've put into fighting back against the banks, as well as all the help you're giving others to do the same. Indeed, had it not been for discovering this thread I would not have known that we could request a refund of the recent charges levied against my son, which was incidentally caused by a similar problem to your partner's

I've also had my fingers badly burnt in the past, and lost a lot of money to banks and credit institutions in excessive charges/fees etc, but unfortunately I'm not in a position to attempt to claim any of that back right now. But it's because of such actions that I do now track every single penny I spend or receive these days, and maybe I am anal and paranoid or whatever, but I do not trust the banks one iota and I would have thought that anyone having been in a similar position would adopt the same sort of scrutiny measures, hence my earlier comments

One thing I do wonder though, and I know I'm going to set the cat amongst the pigeons with this comment, is whether the fact people are now becoming aware they can claim back these extortionate charges will possibly make them become more irresponsible with their finances and not worry about going overdrawn or exceeding limits if they think they can claim back any charges levied for doing so anyway


I'll go and put my flame proof armour on in anticipation of the replies

Turning_into_scrooge

Dchurch24 your post is a bit long to copy but you said in somethng in your post about the banks making money on ours. I know for a fact from a friend of mine who used to work for Natwest and RBS that the banks invest out money at say 7% and give it back to us at 4%. Also the bank charges are just simply for the bank to make money to pay for free banking and yes she said it for their christmas bonuses.; All charges are alos computer generated, the days of the bank manager overiding the computer and making a decision based on past history went years ago, round about the time they started slowley closing down all the local branches. Banks used to be friendly but now they are impersonal and simply business like. i noticed today that LLoysTsb has made profits again of 3.5 now is it million? sorry i forgot but when i read it what went through my mind was how many customers have they fleeced to get even a small proportion of that figure. A friend of mine who has financial problems banks with Halifax only their local branch is changing so that if you have the basic account you cannot pay cash into this branch you have to pay in at a main branch. When she questioned this today she was told to upgrade her account which she would be refused instantly the cashire told her she should run her account better then hadn't she. She could run her account better if they hadn't taken over 2k work of charges out of her account seeing as it can take 3 days for a cash credit to clear and over 7 days for a cheque. Financial institutions are supposed to help those who have financial problems not penalise them. I was as mad and hell when she told me, normally she would of retaliated but seeing as she is not long out of hospital and is at a bit of a ebb she went home and cried. :mad: She has also had the fight of getting the money out of the account to put food on the table or things for the children befoe the charges are taken. Shes always said it would of been easier if they could of paid it back at a small amount each week, they fought hard not to have to file for bankruptcy through the banks inabillity to help

Just to add on about charges in other countries, i do know that in some far east countries such as Thailand bank charges are totally legal there and have to be paid and when we consider that their wags add up to approx the equivilent of £150 per month sor some jobs their charges are £15 for a missed credit card payment and there is nothing they can do about it.

Turning_into_scrooge

[QUOTE=Curry QueenOne thing I do wonder though, and I know I'm going to set the cat amongst the pigeons with this comment, is whether the fact people are now becoming aware they can claim back these extortionate charges will possibly make them become more irresponsible with their finances and not worry about going overdrawn or exceeding limits if they think they can claim back any charges levied for doing so anyway


I'll go and put my flame proof armour on in anticipation of the replies [/QUOTE]

I think there is always the risk of that happening but i would say the majority of those who are claiming are doing this to not only get their money back to to also balance their accounts up so it doesn't happen again. A few have also said that the money will go to paying off some of their debt elswhere. I for one keep daily accounts now and the 2 times i have had bank charges since changing backs 12 months ago ahve not been any of my fault, nor have they been my banks, they have been due to credits not hitting my account and on one occasion it being sent to the wrong account, i was lucky enough to have my charges re funded straight away. I have very little money and none at all at the back of me. My intention is to put this money i recover in a saving account so it is there if its needed for something urgent. it would be nice to buy a new pair of shoes too, but alas i will probably make do witht he ones i have till the soles are leaking lol i hate spending money these days :eek: .

Tim_L

There are perfectly legal ways of encouraging people to stay within overdraft limits - tiered interest rates would be one, declining transactions taking people over a limit would be another. The point is that these charges are designed to make money from the fact that most people don't manage their money by any means other than checking balances periodically, and a single 20p transgression triggers a charge.

deary65

"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..."
These two videos are well worth downloading the "money masters"
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/multimedia/Money_Masters_Tape1_Part1_all.wmv
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/multimedia/Money_Masters_Tape2_128KBps.wmv
You will have a better idea what you are up against after watching these videos.

- - - - - - - - - -
Note from Board Guide - Please use caution when clicking links which open applications on your PC, some files can & do contain viruses. These files are UNCHECKED.

dchurch24

Mark7799 wrote:

No-one is suggesting you carry a notebook and pencil around with you.

Curry_Queen wrote:

or even a notebook and pencil!

Hmmm.............?

homer_j_3

Well, having won my battle with MBNA I have received confirmation by letter to state that they have credited my account with the money that they owed me and that infact I had mis-calculated to their advantage which has now created an overpayment - they are sending this via cheque for me.

What really interests me is some of the comments made in the letter and may be something of interest so I have quoted some of the paragraphs from the letter...

quote...

As discussed, we set out precisely what our charges are in our agreement as they are an integral part of the terms in wheich we are prepared to provide credit facilities. When customers pay late, we incur substantial costs and losses dealing with their default. We have a large portfolio of Customers, and the costs we incur necessarily vary from case to case. In some cases, they are much more than £25 similarly, we set credit limits for good reason and we expect them to be respected. If a customer goes over a credit limit, he or she is using the card in a way that is not allowed, in effect obtaining unauthorised borrowing. The effect is that we lend more than we agreed to, and we take on risk which we never accepted in the first place. We therefore look at the portfolio as a whole and set uniformed charges to help cover our costs and losses which occur, as do all other major credit card providers.

Our view is therefore that the charges that you agreed to are valid, fair and enforceable. Term 3b of your agreement with us clearly states that you must pay £25 each thime your payment has not reached your account of one day of your payment due date, you exceed your credit limit or a cheque is returned unpaid.

However, as we would like to resolve this matter, I have credited your account with a good will payment of £x. You will appreciate that in doing we do not accept that there is any force in the points that you make. We are taking this course in order to bring our relationship with you to an end as soon as possible. I trust you will find this acceptable..

end quote....