MSE News: Bank charges: banks win test case appeal

PadiP

Perhaps now is the time to start thinking and lobbying for a 'People's Bank' perhaps based on an enhanced credit union model? If it was set up as a 'not for profit' or company limited by guarantee and invested as a trust in perpetuity it would remain mutual, i.e. controlled by investors, much as the old building societies were, but then greed took over in the Thatcher years when we were sold so much we already owned!

PadiP

chipbeck wrote: »

Where have you been mate, if only you'd have joined and posted earlier we may have been able to put a stop to these senseless erks wanting their money back.

How nice it is to see someone in touch with reality.

On the odd occasion when I've attracted charges on my current account I simply call one of the serfs from the kitchen and give them a damn good thrashing. Obviously still out of pocket but gets rid of the anger, what is this country coming to.

Love it!!!!

danm

ouija wrote: »

I refer you to THIS POST

which one?

ouija

danm wrote: »

which one?

Click the link??

The_Hallowed_Way

euronorris wrote: »

I don't get why everyone is so against paying for their bank account anyway. You don't expect to get your other financial products for free do you?

I get my credit cards free of charge. If I clear my balance every month I don't pay a cent.

johnd72

PadiP wrote: »

Love it!!!!

nice to have some "tongue in cheek" humour still around......

knighter

Charlie94 wrote: »

Well thats a very utilitatrian point to make.

This judgement was not about what makes the most people happy it was about what is deemed as fair. The amount of people a court judgement affects should have nothing to do with what decision a court makes. If it did then that is not justice.

Your right, I didn't put my point across as I had intended.

What amazes me is that so many people on here (and elsewhere) have jumped on a bandwagon to try and reclaim these "unfair" charges but are not remotely qualified to judge.

My wife recently had a medical assessment at a private hospital which was a few minutes and cost £80, is that fair? I have no idea, I'm not an expert but we agreed to the terms when we made the appointment so we will pay.

It seems to me that many people on here who are against the charges are paying for services they clearly cannot afford such as internet access (to post on this site) and mobile phone contracts (which caused them to incurr bank charges).

Remember, these charges are normally for exceeding your overdraft, NOT going overdrawn. If these people all have internet access they have no excuse for not knowing their financial position at any time (because the banks offer free online banking), particularly if they are close to unauthorised borrowing limits.

ailsajayne29

Originally Posted by alexjohnson
After your first charge, and the bank's refusal to write it off as a one-off gesture (because you asked, right?), did you move to a bank with an interest-free overdraft? Did you ask your own bank about pre-arranged borrowing? Knowing the money was leaving your account faster than you might have liked, did you add up all your direct debits, look at your cash balance, and make some choices? Or did you spend as normal and then get angry when the bank's letter arrived? Having got into debt, did you -back when money was cheap, which includes all the trapped claims - move that to a 0% credit card?

Or did you do none of this, hope it would get better, and really wish hard for a solution which required little effort, no belt tightening at all, and the added cherry on top of a good bit of moral outrage to whip yourself into a frenzy over? In fact, all most of the claimers have done is "jump through hoops", to use your phrase. Martin even wrote the letter for you!




personally after i had to take a lower paid job and had my od increased without telling me to twice my wage to cover the gap (i actually thought they were helping me!) then having to wait 6 weeks for my first pay as i get paid in lieu I was at the limit of my od but stayed within it, until a payment was made in error by the bank to my loan, i got the loan money back but was not refunded charges so after my first two months of getting charges and realising i couldnt afford the diff every month and keep my head above water i did look at gettin an od , was refused i incurred a default after uni four years previously (which i sorted), then i looked at getting a credit card to take the slack for a while... no joy there either, then i asked around friends and family... again no luck..... then i spke to the bank and explained that as they had taken £80 i was down that and if they couldnt refund the charges perhaps they could let me have one month where i wasnt charged... no reasonable repsonse... so the following month i paid all my bills and food and fuel, didnt have anything left as i had had to move house unexpectedly due to splitting with my partner and needed to pay dep etc and finalise bills on our old house... i was then told that if i went od by the charges i would not be charged again.... blantant lies... went od and more stuff bounced and the following month i was up to £120 charges...... this went on and on with more and more charges piling up.....at the time i didnt know that you could walk away from an od and arrange a repayment scheme, i thought i was stuck there until i got advice from the cccs, i did cut back and arrange reduced payments on things..... So i tried.. i really tried but i just couldnt stop it happening and im a little fed up of people coming on here and acting like we all just spent away aignoring everything and carried on as normal, buying clothes, dvds, holidays, beer fags etc when in reality i havent had a holiday for about ten years, dont buy new clothes and actually only had a loan and cc in the first place to consolidate debts incurred at uni.... which again were not spent on going out and having fun, they were spent on the fact that the student loan does not cover rent, fees, food, books and all the other things i needed, I worked my whole way through uni but still didnt have enough cash so got a loan....

so yes.. i did try everything i could and in the end all i could do was walk away from the bank and negotitate with them to acceot my tiny payment of £20 to stop being taken to court. I personally think that if those charges initially had been £5 or £10 it would have been an awful lot easier to budget them in for the next month... or if they had just accepted that i was going through a very difficult time and even agreed to defer the charges for a month or two while i sorted out somewhere to live and got all my pay then again things might be different for me now... Ive said it before today but please please dont assume that we all sat there spending your money and enjoying ourselves..... oh and ive just checked my reclaim letter, over half of my charges are unpaid items and the remainder are almost entirely charges incurred because a charge took me overdrawn... so its not like i was borrowing money i couldnt pay back...

sukey13

PadiP wrote: »

Perhaps now is the time to start thinking and lobbying for a 'People's Bank' perhaps based on an enhanced credit union model? If it was set up as a 'not for profit' or company limited by guarantee and invested as a trust in perpetuity it would remain mutual, i.e. controlled by investors, much as the old building societies were, but then greed took over in the Thatcher years when we were sold so much we already owned!

A bank that the people own and not the government.

The_Hallowed_Way

johnd72 wrote: »

nice to have some "tongue in cheek" humour still around......

That depends on whose tongue is in whose cheeks.