Bank charges

Astaroth

andydixon wrote:

Astaroth, many thanks for your insight, however as you do have not met me or know me you are not in a position to make any judgement on my character let alone post it on a public website.

I did not state that I knew you but I am perfectly entitled to have a personal opinion and to air it with the grounds on which I make that opinion. As you are likewise, seeing as you have judged people who are defending the banks as "pathetic" you clearly have exercised that right and therefore cannot really critise others for doing the same - two wrongs dont make a right as my grandmother used to say.

The irony is that the conclusion to your comments is that it is acceptable to sign up to terms and conditions that you know/ believe are going to be unenforcable with the intention of attempting to get out of it if/ when the other party attempts to enforce them but I am very sure that most the other posters who are supporting your case (and I am not necessarily stating yourself) would be the first to be in up roar if the tables were turned and the contract contained conditions that were unenforcable on the Bank and the bank was the ones saying that they couldnt be forced to honour the agreement.

Someone will undoubtably now reply saying something along the lines of "well the bank should know better than to sign up to the contract" - the same answer applies to the consumer too in my opinion. It is not as if there isnt an option to go to a fee free account but you have to take the limits of the account at the same time as the benefits of knowing that there will be no fees.

elisebutt65

God, these arguments on behalf of the banks make me sooo mad.

Yes, we all mean to run our accounts on the straight and narrow, but sometimes life just happens, you know???

Like my husband decided to leave me with 2 kids and no income!!!

The Income Support people delayed my payments for no reason, other than they felt like it for about 6 weeks.

The first bank charge then snowballed into another charge and another, and so on!!!!

I am now running my account fine but for the last 3 yerars, the Shabbey made my life hell, turning an 0.05p unauthorised overdraft into £64 worth of charges which was about a weeks worth of benefits, so then it snowballed into an even bigger charge when all my D/D's failed.

Do you people even know what it's like to scrimp and scrounge for pennies so your kids can eat because the bank has stolen your benefit money in charges???:mad:

I now have numerous parachute accounts so if they try it again, the money goes straight into another account. Typical Shabbey aren't even bothering to reply to my requests so a complaint has gone to the Data Protection Commisionner so I can get hold of a list of charges from 6 years ago.

Astaroth

No I dont know what it is like to be left with kids and no husband as I have not been married and do not have kids. I do know however what it is like to be totally broke and not even have the benefit of recieving state handouts.

During the time I was unemployed, no savings, no benefits at all, still having to pay rent (by selling my things and doing things that I am not proud of) I ran up around £500 of bank charges but I knew everytime that I wrote a cheque to the local pawnbrokers to cash so that I could eat at least once that week that I would be hit with the charge. If your £64 of charges equates to one weeks benefits I am sure you appreciate that £500 with £0 incoming equates to a lot more. I do not want this to be a sob story about how hard I had it but just to point out that there are people who have had it hard but accept the consequences of their actions and dont expect others to pick up the bill for them.

I am sorry for the situation you were in, I know it isnt pleasent and that is even without kids, but if you suspected that you were going to have financial difficulties why did you not open an account where there is no option of going overdrawn as you arent given a guarntee card? or to put it in a overly harsh way, why do you think that Abbey should have bankrolled you because your husband decided to leave you?

stugib

Ivan,

Your argument seems to be that banks are going to, and should be able to continue their obscene profiteering in one way or the other, therefore they should be free to charge over-the-top fees if it's better than the alternatives they come up with - if they're in the contract then tough. As long as you're alright counting your cash then they can rip off others that may slip up now and again.

Surely the point Andy won on is not whether they're entitled to charge fees, but that the level is proportionate to the costs they incur. The fact that they will try to get away with fleecing their customers in other ways is no excuse to allow them to continue with scandalous fees that bear no relation to what it costs their computer to send out an automated letter. Sure, there's the discouraging people getting into debt factor, but in most cases that trigger this kind of protest it's charging £30 for a letter to say you're 5p over your limit. And I don't believe for a second the banks are acting as some sort of debt guardians - as others have pointed out they actively encourage debt.

The market/competition won't sort this out - if it was going to then fees would've come down by now. The banks are all quite happy charging the same extortionate fees as it's easy profit picking on people that mostly don't fight back. Yes they may try to increase charges or reduce deals elsewhere but I'm more confident the market will work in the medium term in sorting out interest rates, up-front fees etc (e.g. mortgages) as these are more considered, infrequent, predictable decisions rather than traps laid by the banks that can snare people through unforseen events - not always 'irresponsibility'.

moonrakerz

IvanOpinion wrote:

What amazes me even more is that people are stupid enough to select a product that obviously does not meet their needs, they are stupid enough (or dishonest?) to agree in writing to pay a level of charges, they then take a cavalier approach to money management and breach their contract and start gurning when the bank tells them that they are about to do what they told them they would do in the first place. They even then have the cheek to demand compensation despite they never openly put their fees into the contract (seems like an unfair contract on both sides).

What annoys me most is that I am the one having to pay for (so called) adults that can not run their accounts properly by carrying out simple first year maths. We only have to look at how easy it is getting to declare bankruptcy ... who do you think pays for the millions that get written off each year .. it sure as heck is not the banks. Unfortunately while such people are allowed to mismanage their accounts EVERYBODY is a loser.

Maybe it is time that people who obviously can not be trusted to run a simple account had that privilege taken away from them. Let them go back to keeping cash under their mattresses until they prove they can run an account in a sensible manner.

Ivan

Hello again Ivan !! I'm going to disagree with you again (in part !)

I agree entirely that people should be able to run a bank account or if they screw it up they should be responsible. And I agree that the pair of us are to some extent subsidising the !!!!less and reckless. (I digress here - I have just typed in a perfectly respectable word - and the site appears to have censored it ! The first word was the same as the second except that it started with F. But it seems to be happy if I mention a duck !)

However - the point you keep missing, or ignoring, is that what the banks are doing is UNLAWFUL. If what they were doing was lawful I wouldn't argue with you. If you don't like it, don't write to this site - write to your MP.

If you park on double yellow lines you get a £30 ticket, if you object, you can take it to court. If the traffic warden decides to let your tyres down to punish you as well, that is unlawful - this in effect is what the banks are doing. Why do you defend them ? Just because you personally don't park on double yellow lines doesn't make it OK. Or does it, in your book?

The arguments you put forward just make you appear to be a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, aren't I clever for not getting bank charges character - which I am sure you are not !

LondonDiva

stugib wrote:

Ivan,

Your argument seems to be that banks are going to, and should be able to continue their obscene profiteering in one way or the other, therefore they should be free to charge over-the-top fees if it's better than the alternatives they come up with - if they're in the contract then tough. As long as you're alright counting your cash then they can rip off others that may slip up now and again.

Surely the point Andy won on is not whether they're entitled to charge fees, but that the level is proportionate to the costs they incur. The fact that they will try to get away with fleecing their customers in other ways is no excuse to allow them to continue with scandalous fees that bear no relation to what it costs their computer to send out an automated letter. Sure, there's the discouraging people getting into debt factor, but in most cases that trigger this kind of protest it's charging £30 for a letter to say you're 5p over your limit. And I don't believe for a second the banks are acting as some sort of debt guardians - as others have pointed out they actively encourage debt.

The market/competition won't sort this out - if it was going to then fees would've come down by now. The banks are all quite happy charging the same extortionate fees as it's easy profit picking on people that mostly don't fight back. Yes they may try to increase charges or reduce deals elsewhere but I'm more confident the market will work in the medium term in sorting out interest rates, up-front fees etc (e.g. mortgages) as these are more considered, infrequent, predictable decisions rather than traps laid by the banks that can snare people through unforseen events - not always 'irresponsibility'.

The point is that banks should not have to charge 'reasonable rates' as the money in an overdraft is a loan and an unauthorised loan at that. If you want a reasonable loan rate, you get an authorised loan. You agree to their terms when you take out money that you KNOW isn't yours or is not agreed.

If customers want the priviledges of the largely free banking we get in this country, then banks need to make the money back from those who can't manage their money.

I actually do hope the market sorts some of this out, if people start finding themselves blacklisted for improperly managing their accounts or limited to 'solo' type accounts, then they have no excuses and will be forced to live within their means.

elisebutt65

Astaroth wrote:

I am sorry for the situation you were in, I know it isnt pleasent and that is even without kids, but if you suspected that you were going to have financial difficulties why did you not open an account where there is no option of going overdrawn as you arent given a guarntee card? or to put it in a overly harsh way, why do you think that Abbey should have bankrolled you because your husband decided to leave you?

I didn't have a guarantee card( I do now as I've got a student account), or an overdraft facility - just a basic Electron Visa card account!! I wasn't supposed to be able to go iverdrawn but the bank just kept on letting D/D's go through , weeks after I'd cancelled some of them. I was paying most of them in cash after I thought I'd cancelled them. I managed to get some of the money back via the DD guarantee but they let the charges ride!!!

lizzie47

Live within means,reckless,guilable,dumb public,cavalier approach to money,stupid,dishonest, An then the cheek to claim it back......Last straw Ivan.....Just who do you think you are sitting in judgement...:mad: of me and others "claiming back" what the banks have STOLEN ...yes STOLEN.Yes i have what has been termed "A SOB" story but i and other decent folk are most certaintly none of your above adjectives...Go on a few "claim it back sites" and get in the real world ivan. have a read of the "sob storys" you may find on reading through a few posts,about how decent hard working law abiding folk have been "had" and by no fault of there own ended up on the sharp end.I truly hope you keep your health and wealth and dont fall foul of the underhanded bully boy ILLEAGLE tactics employed by the banks...as millions of us lesser mortals have..There for the grace of god go i...Have a good look then come back having informed yourself..
you may well find you have joined the long ever expanding(and rightly so) queue of very very mad "cutomers" I cant belive your attitude :mad:

Astaroth

Lizzie47 - ok..... you had a bank account, lets assume with no overdraft facility, and you then attempted to take out money which 1) you did not have 2) had no authority to take (say for a DD when there were insufficient funds to cover it).

(given your love of caps) how are you therefore not a THIEF too?

As to the traffic warden story someone else posted earlier.... the traffic warden sticks something on your windscreen, a computer then sends a letter if it doesnt note a payment in X days - so you think that this automated process does cost £30 but the THEFT (as lizzie likes to call it) or attempted theft from the bank doesnt warrent a £30 fee?

And lets please get this ILLEGAL bit into context here - firstly we are talking about the joys of common law not criminal law. The question is if something is enforceable or not. As others have also pointed out, banks have not contested these cases - this is not because they dont believe they are right but as with all court cases the banks consider the cost of defending -v- the cost of settling, in these cases it generally just isnt worth their effort going to court. Appathy is a big difference to something that is ILLEGAL

Searcher

moonrakerz wrote:

On what grounds would you be unable to open an account with any other bank ? Because you pointed out to another bank that they were acting unlawfully ! THAT would look really good in court !

Gone are the days when anybody could walk into any branch of any bank and just open an account.
I moved to Australia in 1990 and returned in 2000.
It took me 2 years to be able to open even a basic account and it's only recently that I've been able to open a real "grown up" account with any degree of functionality. Prior to that the best I could manage was an account with a Solo debit card and no facilities for online/telephone banking or standing orders, and all because I was out of the country for 10 years.
They don't have to take you if they don't want to and they don't have to give you a reason.
There are plenty of people in the UK now who can't get even the most basic of accounts which is one of the reasons you see so many places offering to cash cheques for a ridiculously high fee.