What is a "fair" charge?

thriftymanc

Has this been officially decided yet? I've googled but can't find an answer. How much can a bank charge before it becomes an "unfair" charge?

dunstonh

There has been no agreement on what is fair.

Also, what bank charges are you referring to?

natweststaffmember

thriftymanc wrote: »

Has this been officially decided yet? I've googled but can't find an answer. How much can a bank charge before it becomes an "unfair" charge?

As Dunstonh has stated there has been no decision on a figure of what is classed as fair. Currently it is the terms that are under consideration.

natweststaffmember

thriftymanc wrote: »

I just meant e.g. if you go overdrawn by say £50 for a day, and the bank charges you £25 for being overdrawn - that sort of thing. I haven't had any charges personally so no 'real' scenario - I was just talking to someone earlier who asked me if I knew what a fair charge was (they said they'd heard different amounts from different people e.g. £6, £12) and I didn't have a clue and couldn't find it online. I wasn't sure if it had been decided yet, apparently not.

BBC had a programme on a few years ago that suggested incorporating staff costs, heating and lighting that £2.50 would be the real cost. BBC Whistleblower suggested that Yorkshire/Clydesdale was just over £1.00 so that is the kind of stuff that has been seen.

dunstonh

natweststaffmember wrote: »

BBC had a programme on a few years ago that suggested incorporating staff costs, heating and lighting that £2.50 would be the real cost. BBC Whistleblower suggested that Yorkshire/Clydesdale was just over £1.00 so that is the kind of stuff that has been seen.

I dont see that being realistic though. When I worked at the bank, about 10 staff were solely involved in dealing with the poor quality accounts and bouncing items. If no-one went over their limits, those staff wouldnt have been needed.

Equally I dont see the charge being anywhere near what the banks have it at either.

natweststaffmember

dunstonh wrote: »

I dont see that being realistic though. When I worked at the bank, about 10 staff were solely involved in dealing with the poor quality accounts and bouncing items. If no-one went over their limits, those staff wouldnt have been needed.

Equally I dont see the charge being anywhere near what the banks have it at either.

It wasn't my figures dustonh
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6169539.stm
BBC article
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/yorkshire-bank-clydesdale-bank/75956-yorkshire-bank-whistleblower-true.html#post664022
The actual whistleblower from Yorkshire/Clydesdale(I have met them in person as well).

When I worked in the branch we had a printout everyday of people over their limit because it was used for sales, ie loans. If there risk grade was 9-10 you never called them cos you could do nothing. If it was 8 it was borderline.
It was 1 person who dealt with it but for selling only and not really for customer services.

dunstonh

I accept things are more computerised nowadays and that will reduce the cost of the actual work involved. We used to have five account managers dealing with the lists (not including branch manager and senior manager or business managers who had their own lists) and five staff had roles that involved bouncing items. A couple of those roles were multiple purpose but after midday they were basically all focused on dealing with the items to bounce.

These figures saying it costs £x tend to ignore the training costs, monitoring (supervisors and inspectors etc) as well as long term record keeping and how much the computers cost that allow it to be done quicker and cheaper than it used to be. They tend to focus on how much it costs to press the button rather than that full cost that allows the button to be pressed.

natweststaffmember

dunstonh wrote: »

I accept things are more computerised nowadays and that will reduce the cost of the actual work involved. We used to have five account managers dealing with the lists (not including branch manager and senior manager or business managers who had their own lists) and five staff had roles that involved bouncing items. A couple of those roles were multiple purpose but after midday they were basically all focused on dealing with the items to bounce.

These figures saying it costs £x tend to ignore the training costs, monitoring (supervisors and inspectors etc) as well as long term record keeping and how much the computers cost that allow it to be done quicker and cheaper than it used to be. They tend to focus on how much it costs to press the button rather than that full cost that allows the button to be pressed.

Unfortunately, these days it is a mostly automated process which responds to a program command that can only be changed to pay rather than not pay.
In the past there certainly would have been things like that, even 10 years ago I know that lending managers would have had cheques physically taken out of bundles to look at them prior to returning them. Unfortunately that is not the case today, in fact it was cheaper 10 years ago then today and cheques are no longer really looked at when they are returned.