Martin on Radio 5 this morning and the banks

lemonjelly

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

:rolleyes:

If it makes you feel better, replace the word "you" with the words "idiotic irresponsible waste of space boneheads".

What the h3ll is wrong with people these days?

An entire "advice" industry has been spawned enabling the f.eckless to be even more f.eckless by trying to wriggle out of contracts they agreed to, and avoid paying debts that they owe.

It's about time people stood on their own two feet. Treating the population like weak, feebleminded, children, results in a population that acts like weak, feebleminded children.

If you (oops, sorry, idiotic waste of space boneheads) bounce a payment once, you (oops, there I go again, sorry, the idiotic waste of space boneheads) should learn not to do it again.

If it's going to spiral, then shut down the direct debits or account til it's fixed.

Then learn to keep track of money and don't make the same mistake again.

It's a contract!!!!!! It was signed up to and agreed. It's the price that is paid for misusing the account.

Again, nobody put a gun to anyone elses head and forced them to open an account, or to misuse that account and then have to pay the fees they were warned would occur if the did misuse the account, and agreed to in the first place.

Enabling and encouraging people to scam the banks or the credit card companies out of paying what they owe is shameful. And will only result in the rest of us paying more.

Now before the pc police around here get up in arms, I am sure there are a tiny, tiny, number of people who end up in that situation through no fault of their own. And the banks should reverse those charges if it is their fault. But the majority of people who end up in that situation are there because they didn't manage their money properly, and they should pay the price.

Hmmmm. Yes. & treating them like idiotic irresponsible waste of space boneheads would, by your very own logic & therefore admission, create a society of idiotic irresponsible waste of space boneheads. How would that help?

I feel the advice industry is there to help those who may need that support, for whatever reason. It can be intimidating challenging a large scale company, or public body.

Further, the organisations I work for, and my own personal working model, mean that we don't just do stuff "for the !!!!less". Actually, it is about helping people to make informed choices about how they've got to where they are at, & what they are going to do to remedy it. I don't do everything for clients I see - I give them responsibilities. To acheive a goal, there will be things they will have to do. I'll support them, but it isn't real help to do it for them. After all, if I do, then what will they have learned?

If a client asks me what they should do, I'll inform them it is their choice & give them the options.

Yes, it may be time for people to behave more responsibly.

Let us also remember, that it is also time for corporate bodies/organisations to also behave responsibly. I would include responsible lending & responsible & ethical trading in this. And businesses are made up of people carrying out roles, so lets hope the people carrying out their roles are also behaving responsibly eh?

If it's going to spiral, then shut down the direct debits or account til it's fixed.

Erm, yeah. But your bills still aren't being paid. How is that responsible? Doesn't take into account how long it takes to fix it either.

Then learn to keep track of money and don't make the same mistake again.

Easier said than done! How can I make sure I never get made redundant again because my employer has gone bust? Or, how can I ensure that my household income doesn't reduce by 50%because my spouse has died?

Who will do the teaching about how to keep track of money?

It's a contract!!!!!! It was signed up to and agreed. It's the price that is paid for misusing the account.

I suggest you re-read the 2 threads on this board about the case. Effectively the banks are approving the payments.

Again, nobody put a gun to anyone elses head and forced them to open an account, or to misuse that account and then have to pay the fees they were warned would occur if the did misuse the account, and agreed to in the first place.

Not every citizen of this fine country has the time, experience, education & nous to understand every word of every bit of small print on every page. Plus, I would assert that it is very likely we have all been in or witnessed a situation where a sales member of staff is talking through the small print VERY quickly with a customer, & promoting it is signed in a much quicker time span than would allow a detailed reading.

Enabling and encouraging people to scam the banks or the credit card companies out of paying what they owe is shameful. And will only result in the rest of us paying more.

On the whole, I'm not convinced it is a scam. Further, the arguement has logically been put forward (& not constructively dismissed) that the banks used these charges a a means to seriously expand their profit margins, & the penalties did not accurately reflect the costs they incurred. I note with interest that you conveniently choose to ignore these issues, & prefer to rant about "theives".
Further, it is a scam & illegal if the banks are acting in a way which is incompatible with the law. Now, should they be allowed to do so?

Cannon Fodder has made good points in their contribution to this thread, please, in addition to the points I have raised, try to answer these in a logical & rational fashion.



Oh, and watch the assumptions you make. As your posts become offensive when you make such assumptions. As well as being completely flawed. Even your above reply is completely flawed, & self defeating.


In addition, I note your failure to mitigate your earlier post, or even consider an apology. Disappointing. Pathetic even.

nearlynew

Just think how bad all this woluld be in a "cashless society" with ID cards linked to such a system.
One little mistake and you are well and truly f*cked and unable to go about your daily business.





And by the way, in the eyes of the law, "theft" is not just taking someone's property without consent....

You also have to have the intention of permenantly depriving them of said property.

Not paying a bill because of a clerical error is not theft.

LydiaJ

There is something very wrong with a system where one little mistake, even if it's not your mistake, can get you into a spiral from which it's incredibly hard to escape. Because human beings are fallible, and we all make mistakes sometimes.

For example, I have recently made a mistake with my credit card. I have a credit card, but I have a DD set up to pay it off in full every month, so it gives me convenience and cashflow and I don't pay any interest on it. So far so good. However, a couple of weeks ago, I absent-mindedly put it into the cashpoint instead of my debit card. I stupidly disregarded the warning that "your card issuer may charge you for this withdrawal" too, because I was withdrawing from a cashpoint at a different bank from usual, and I just thought "yeah, yeah, I know my bank doesn't charge so that doesn't apply".

Now, that was my mistake. It's the first time I've made that mistake in 20 years of having debit and credit cards next to each other in my wallet, but it was my mistake. And the £3 fee that I've been charged is reasonable enough, I suppose. It's let me in for a whole lot of other mess, though. My card uses payments to pay off purchases before cash. Because I'm reasonably financially savvy, I knew that. That very evening I withdrew enough money from my savings account to clear the entire CC balance. I checked a few days later - the CC company had managed to apply another purchase to my account before crediting the payment. I stopped using the card, and put in more money to pay off the balance and then some to cover whatever interest was accruing. I waited until after the statement date before using the card again. Today the statement arrived. Again, they had managed to apply a previous purchase (that hadn't shown up online when I made the payment) before applying the payment. £10 of the £50 cash withdrawal is still accruing interest. I have just added up the two CC purchases I've made since the statement, and paid off another £100, which I hope will be enough to cover the £20.54 on the statement, the £51.36 on the two purchases since the statement date, and anything else they might be able to come up with. I shan't be using the card again until the online balance has shown 0.00 for several days. I hope in this way to get back to my accustomed interest-free situation.

But it's really shocked me how much effort it's taken me to recover from that one stupid mistake. I'm OK - I've got savings, and I only use the interest-free period on the card to keep more of my money where it earns interest, rather than to survive from one month to the next. I understand how these things work, I read the small print, and I've got internet access and online banking. So for me it's a bit of a hassle but all told I'll have lost less than a fiver, which isn't significant for me. Not everyone has those advantages, and without them I think I'd have ended up paying compound interest on that £50 cash withdrawal for months, or maybe years.

carolt

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

:rolleyes:

If it makes you feel better, replace the word "you" with the words "idiotic irresponsible waste of space boneheads".

It's always good to see in a nutshell how Hamish views his fellow human beings. Hamish, I suggest you write to Martin, whose site you post this offensive drivel on, and copy him in personally on your post. Given that he has personally spearheaded the campaign to reclaim bank charges, and put a huge amount of effort in to help others less fortunate than himself. I'm sure he'd be most interested in your constructive comments.

Then I suggest you post this on some of the many threads on here dedicated to helping people at their wits' end due to spiralling bank charges, and explain to them that you're glad they're screwed, because they are "idiotic irresponsible waste of space boneheads".

Better still, arrange to meet up with some.


How can anyone so self-centred and selfish, and so entirely lacking in empathy, exist?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

carolt wrote: »

It's always good to see in a nutshell how Hamish views his fellow human beings. Hamish, I suggest you write to Martin, whose site you post this offensive drivel on, and copy him in personally on your post.

Nice selective use of the cut and paste facility there carol, but of course it's what we all expect from you, trying to stir up trouble like that.

Martin is surely well aware that many of this sites users strongly disagree with a campaign which shifts costs away from those who pay it through misusing their accounts, and onto the rest of us who budget properly.

I note you didn't bother repeating the part where I clearly stated that...

I am sure there are a tiny, tiny, number of people who end up in that situation through no fault of their own. And the banks should reverse those charges if it is their fault.

Those people of course should be looked after, and probably far more quickly than seems to be the case today, but rewarding the rest of the system abusers by limiting fees is not the way to do it. You'll only encourage more abuse of the system, and increase costs for everyone else.

In my opinion the vast majority of people who end up being charged do so through their own carelessness or lazyness, and they should learn to budget better.

I really don't have any sympathy for self inflicted charges.

Harry_Powell

abaxas wrote: »

I always say this, but as normal no-one will care.

Why dont we charge them back?

A payment takes > allotted time, sorry but that's a £29 unauthorized fee.

You get some marketing crap in the post, sorry but that is a £35pm marketing contract that runs for 12 months etc.

Best way to sort things out is to do what they do to us, but to them!

You couldn't do this because to first levy these charges, you would have to have the banks sign a contract agreeing to them. As the bank won't sign your contract, you can't levy the charges.

The solution, as I keep saying and no one cares, is for people to stop using Direct Debits for any and all trivial payments, stop signing up for 12, 18, 24 subscriptions (gym, mobile phone, Sky TV, etc) that still have to be serviced even if jobs are lost, stop obtaining credit (even zero percent) for stuff that can wait to be paid for through saving up.

Put simply, prevention is better than the cure.

carolt

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Nice selective use of the cut and paste facility there carol, but of course it's what we all expect from you, trying to stir up trouble like that.

Martin is surely well aware that many of this sites users strongly disagree with a campaign which shifts costs away from those who pay it through misusing their accounts, and onto the rest of us who budget properly.

I note you didn't bother repeating the part where I clearly stated that...



Those people of course should be looked after, and probably far more quickly than seems to be the case today, but rewarding the rest of the system abusers by limiting fees is not the way to do it. You'll only encourage more abuse of the system, and increase costs for everyone else.

In my opinion the vast majority of people who end up being charged do so through their own carelessness or lazyness, and they should learn to budget better.

I really don't have any sympathy for self inflicted charges.

Nice attempt at backtracking, Hamish.

misskool

Harry_Powell wrote: »

You couldn't do this because to first levy these charges, you would have to have the banks sign a contract agreeing to them. As the bank won't sign your contract, you can't levy the charges.

The solution, as I keep saying and no one cares, is for people to stop using Direct Debits for any and all trivial payments, stop signing up for 12, 18, 24 subscriptions (gym, mobile phone, Sky TV, etc) that still have to be serviced even if jobs are lost, stop obtaining credit (even zero percent) for stuff that can wait to be paid for through saving up.

Put simply, prevention is better than the cure.

Direct debit is the preferred method payment of choice. You get discounts and stuff from it. At the moment, we pay electricity, gas, council tax (all ESSENTIAL) via direct debit. And because we pay by direct debit, we get it cheaper. Why are the poor being asked to pay more for essential services? Electricity is much more expensive on a key.

Perhaps people should be taught about personal finance first because giving them the bitter pill.

julieq

Harry_Powell wrote: »

You couldn't do this because to first levy these charges, you would have to have the banks sign a contract agreeing to them. As the bank won't sign your contract, you can't levy the charges.

The solution, as I keep saying and no one cares, is for people to stop using Direct Debits for any and all trivial payments, stop signing up for 12, 18, 24 subscriptions (gym, mobile phone, Sky TV, etc) that still have to be serviced even if jobs are lost, stop obtaining credit (even zero percent) for stuff that can wait to be paid for through saving up.

Put simply, prevention is better than the cure.

You're just parading your prejudices Harry. That is a pat list worthy of the Daily Mail. I guess "these people" all have plasma TVs too.

It's not impossible to make a mistake even if you're careful. I'm careful, and I accidentally hit a bank charge for which a DEBIT CARD transaction (not a direct debit) which took me 86p overdrawn on an account I'd requested no overdraft for. This resulted in a £25 charge for the "service" of considering whether I could be allowed to go 86p overdrawn, and a further £25 for the transaction itself. I'd have preferred the transaction rejected because I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS SERVICE when I applied for the account, in fact I rejected the offer of credit.

OK, I can get irritated, shout at customer services, close the account, and check more carefully next time, because I don't generally run my account close to zero and this is an unusual event. But if you're short of cash, you're by definition running close to the line, and you have statistically a far higher chance of making a mistake.

And when you make a mistake, you're finished. £50 is a lot of money to someone who hasn't got much money, and it shifts the centre of gravity down for next time. These people you so happily pigeonhole as f eckless chavs are real people with familes to feed and frankly I'd rather they did that than boost the coffers of the banks and provide you and me with free banking.

The cost of both the money and the risk of the unauthorised overdraft not being repaid can come out of an increased rate of interest. These fees are simply usurious.

fatbelly

julieq wrote: »

OK, I can get irritated, shout at customer services, close the account, and check more carefully next time, because I don't generally run my account close to zero and this is an unusual event. But if you're short of cash, you're by definition running close to the line, and you have statistically a far higher chance of making a mistake.

And when you make a mistake, you're finished. £50 is a lot of money to someone who hasn't got much money, and it shifts the centre of gravity down for next time. .

Very true. The government has effectively stopped payment of benefits by Giro and encouraged claimants to open bank accounts to receive their JSA/Income support of £64.30 per week (£50.95 if they're under 25)

These are the people who are most likely to suffer under the current charging regime.