Why Reclaim Bank Charges

Cleany

Chrysalis wrote: »

bad example, you comparing a product to a service that falls under unfair trading conditions.

i submit to you that they aren't unfair trading conditions!

Chrysalis wrote: »

The punishment for not having sufficient funds is simply the bill doesnt get paid and whatever the bill was for will soon have its repurcussions anyway for the billpayer.

isnt that what this is all really about? it's not really got anything to do with the banks, they're just the ones where the buck happens to stop.

if it really was the case that instead of people being charged for DDs not being paid, the bills were simply rejected, wouldnt the same people still have problems? probably the spiral effect would disappear, but all the same, some people can sleep through the loudest alarms, no matter what sound it makes.

Cleany

Dan_Bailey wrote: »

To be honest mate thats the exact problem I (and probably a lot of other people) have with the banks. £35 is a hell of a lot to charge for bouncing payments (matched with a similar charge at the other end eg £30 credit card) The banks weren't paying my bills for me and I certaintly wasn't spending other peoples money. And when their charge taken in 28 days time push you into the red enough to bounce another two Direct Debits it's genuinely frustrating. I got caught in the classic snowball trap and within the space of about 4 months paid about £600 in bank charges - more than a months wage to me at the time.

Can't help but think some of the people defending the banks and the "free banking" model really don't understand what the fuss is all about. I do "enjoy" "free banking" nowadays but having been there and seen how the banks can rake it in from people already struggling with debts, the young and the unfortunate, I would quite happily pay a flat service charge, or maybe a more appropriate set of interest rates, to ensure the banks make enough to continue their business.

im not bothered about free banking personally, what i think is wrong about the campaign to force bank to alter their charges, is the reason that it's happpening.

in my opinion theres a culture of laziness and greed that has hijacked this issue and ruined it for those who are really being unfairly treated.

if people want to play it close to the edge with their finances that's a risk, and if anyone knows anythings about money, they will know that risks cost money.

some people will always go beyond their financial limits, whatever that might be. for whatever reason they wont think about a buffer of £500, or £1000, and if they did, they would then spend it.

the reality of the situation is that if you dont do that you can get caught in some kind of direct debit causality loop.

so theres your risk. it could be something else, red letters from companies, court threats, frankly it could be worse. but it is how it is and it shouldnt be hard to avoid it.

but it is. it actually is hard to avoid it for many people.

a lot of people have been unfairly treated. but a lot more think they have been unfairly treated when they haven't. they have got "fairness" mixed up with "difficulty". it takes an effort to manage your finances, time and organisation. not a hell of a lot, but some. but for some people thats too much, they havent made the effort, its been too hard, for whatever reason.

the problem is they've then thought that its "unfair" that they have been charged because they didnt follow the same rules that we all play by. well if the rules dont suit you why not try to change them, especially if it means getting some money "back"? personally i dont think the banking rules are generally unfair (nor does the supreme court), but even if i did, i would still follow them for one simple reason - because everyone else does, because thems the rules, because thats the game. its a matter of respect.

but some people dont care about that. they turn the rare moments in life when you're really on the short end of something that's out of order into a day to day event, ruining it for the many people who have been put in a ridiculous situation because the banking system isnt perfect. why coudnt there have been a campaign to help just them?

because greed took over, the campaign tried to do too much, it tried to change the rules, and it failed. it tried to get literally billions from the banking system and put it into the hands of people who mostly cant manage their finances. if you think that's "right" because of those greedy banking fat cats then all your saying is that you want a piece of the pie simply for the sake of it. if you really want to fight for money that other people have, if you have jealousy in your eyes, then good luck being happy.

but for most people theres a system set up to keep things generally in order. it's not perfect, but that doesnt mean to say that it should be altered to make it easier for people to mismanage their money, to push the responsibility for managing our finances towards institutions, and to call it "consumer action" (which it isnt).

natweststaffmember

I actually agree with a lot of what you said except that you stated that the campaign tried to change the rules. The campaign tried to create a fairer banking system and to a degree there have been some successes with regards to some firms lowering their charges and I think I would agree that people themselves do need to take a good look at how banking works. For example, how direct debits works and their mechanisms so that they realise that if a bill is due over the weekend that the bill will be taken early. Personally, I would like the DD providers to state a date for collection of a payment and stick to it. TV licence for example, are deadly in terms of when they take money via DD. It never goes earlier than the date is states on on the licence(from my own experience).
However, Lloyds have recently advertised a service which means that if you get to your account limit they will decline all payments yet they are charging £10 to do this. I don't agree with this idea because they should be doing this already as a service to their customers. Perhaps opting into overdraft services is the way to go because whilst it won't necessarily stop people being financially dumb, it will make them think more if a payment is declined and not charged rather than charged when it is declined. An opt in service that allows this to happen would be legitimate with a charge attached to it which the customer is fully aware of. Just my own take on it.

pingchris

Cleany wrote: »

I wonder if it's the best thing for everyone that the claim to make bank charges "unfair" has failed.

I think Martin Lewis is great, and so is this website. I have put loads of my friends onto it and they get the email, use vouchers, look up stuff and the rest. I say this just so that people don't think I am having a go for the sake of it.

I like the fact that people are charged money for having an unauthorised overdraft. I know that sometimes circumstances can end up with it being unfair, but in general if people don't act responsibly with somebody elses money then don't they deserve to be charged?

There is the argument that bank charges "subsidise" banking costs for people, but on the other hand those people with money in the bank are making a profit for the banking system too (as well as a bit for themselves).

I know someone who has been through all of this process to recaim bank charges a couple of years ago. Whatever fair and unfair situations went on, I know that this person is irresponsible with money. I don't know if he was successful, but he was happy that he could "get some more money".

In the long run, and in general (there are of course many unfair situations), shouldn't irresponsibility with other people's money be punished, rather than ignored, especially in the light of recent economic history?

overdraught is one thing but getting charged £39.00 for no overdraught is insanity,a missed direct debit is not an overdraught,you have spent noones cash not the banks certainly,so how come a charge of such high amount,its ridiculous,i still havnt heard a defence for this from any bank member nor a breakdown of cost

pingchris

natweststaffmember wrote: »

I actually agree with a lot of what you said except that you stated that the campaign tried to change the rules. The campaign tried to create a fairer banking system and to a degree there have been some successes with regards to some firms lowering their charges and I think I would agree that people themselves do need to take a good look at how banking works. For example, how direct debits works and their mechanisms so that they realise that if a bill is due over the weekend that the bill will be taken early. Personally, I would like the DD providers to state a date for collection of a payment and stick to it. TV licence for example, are deadly in terms of when they take money via DD. It never goes earlier than the date is states on on the licence(from my own experience).
However, Lloyds have recently advertised a service which means that if you get to your account limit they will decline all payments yet they are charging £10 to do this. I don't agree with this idea because they should be doing this already as a service to their customers. Perhaps opting into overdraft services is the way to go because whilst it won't necessarily stop people being financially dumb, it will make them think more if a payment is declined and not charged rather than charged when it is declined. An opt in service that allows this to happen would be legitimate with a charge attached to it which the customer is fully aware of. Just my own take on it.

the part about the no set date for direct debits to come out is spot on,they dont give you a set date as that would make it easier to manage your aaccount,by creating confusion over your dates and what has got to come out and go in on various dates makes them cash as they know it will have the desired effect of people getting confused.they make millions from this way of setting up direct debits,they could do it but they profit from it so why change it,also say u got 6 dd,s coming out in one day and they all fail due to you putting your cash in a day late thats £234.00 coming out all at once,thats a weeks wage for most people,can you imagine the trouble that would bring if that was to happen with customers of banks,there would be heell to pay,thats why the system they use is the one they choose,and its all profit,

they have made profits from trying to confuse customers

Cleany

well the last 3 posts have been about direct debit again. and like i have said, perhaps if the campaign was just about the Direct Debit Maelstrom of Infinity (or whatever name you can think of) then it might have had more chance of succeeding.

pingchris wrote: »

overdraught is one thing but getting charged £39.00 for no overdraught is insanity,a missed direct debit is not an overdraught,you have spent noones cash not the banks certainly,so how come a charge of such high amount,its ridiculous,i still havnt heard a defence for this from any bank member nor a breakdown of cost

yes that does sound ridiculous, but spare a thought for the alternatives and the situation.

you're a utilities company with millions of customers. you have a massive automated system whereby people who don't pay are dealt with in some way. you cant be concerned with whether or not someone forgot to pay, or the cheque got lost etc. etc. , you have to draw a line and say that if someone pays x days late, there's going to be action. it used to be that people got cut off all the time, but that doesnt happen now (i think the law changed?), so there will be court threat letters etc. etc.

there is, and should be, a penalty for paying bills late. the direct debit system has its own version of that. it seems that for many people the penalty for not paying direct debits is too high (even without the spiral effect), but perhaps it's needed to make people pay attention to their bank account as many people don't.

now im not trying to give all the answers there, im just trying to understand that there are always 2 sides to a story. but really it doesnt matter to me what the reasons are because im happy to understand that if i dont pay my bills on time etc. then somewhere some corporate body has it set up so that i'll suffer! i dont blame them, because if i ran a business and people didnt pay for their goods and services, i would do the same. and because i dont blame them i leave the penalty setting to them, and look after my business which is paying the bill or making sure my bank account doesnt run out of money.

the problem with this campaign is that its focus is on the charges that the banks make to bad customers. it seems to completely ignore that fact that people should pay their bills on time and should manage their accounts. it supplies no alternative methodology or advide to those customers, it ignores their responsibilities, and simply attacks all bank charges.

from my point of view, if you cant manage your own responsibilities, you have no business criticising other people's. in the majority of cases the campaign is simply an attempt to make the banks change the way it charges its customers, on behalf of customers who should be managing their money better in the first place. for the rest of the cases, a lot of which are unfair, its not right that people get stung for hundreds of pounds for a one off offence, with one charge leading to another (in that way its like a hidden charge, and too complicated to expect the average person to take on board). as i said before perhaps the campaign should have focused on them. but even in those cases, there has to be some note that it was possible to avoid by the customer by having some sort of financial buffer, or not paying by direct debit etc.

there are probably unspoken millions who have come on this website because they heard they could get some money. they arent posting on the forums, because they dont care. they downloaded a couple of forms and got a couple of grand they werent entitled to. they should have to learn from their mistakes like everyone else, but this campaign has made them into special cases, and distorted the meaning of the word "consumer". thats wrong, its wrong on a mass scale, and im glad its stopped.

Cleany

pingchris wrote: »

the part about the no set date for direct debits to come out is spot on,they dont give you a set date as that would make it easier to manage your aaccount,by creating confusion over your dates and what has got to come out and go in on various dates makes them cash as they know it will have the desired effect of people getting confused.they make millions from this way of setting up direct debits,they could do it but they profit from it so why change it,also say u got 6 dd,s coming out in one day and they all fail due to you putting your cash in a day late thats £234.00 coming out all at once,thats a weeks wage for most people,can you imagine the trouble that would bring if that was to happen with customers of banks,there would be heell to pay,thats why the system they use is the one they choose,and its all profit,

they have made profits from trying to confuse customers

you think people are that stupid? that their utterly helpless against the tirade of confusing dates and that no matter how hard they tried the bank have made billions out of the poor lost and helpless wondering brainless idiots. is painting that kind of picture of people worth the money?

perhaps more likely a scenario is that a consumer society brought up with ever increasing amounts of expendible cash and greed for the latest gadgets and time saving devices has become addicted to spending money, so badly, that it's willing to forgo intelligence and responsibility for it?

natweststaffmember

Cleany wrote: »

well the last 3 posts have been about direct debit again. and like i have said, perhaps if the campaign was just about the Direct Debit Maelstrom of Infinity (or whatever name you can think of) then it might have had more chance of succeeding.

Apologies but as cheques are a dying breed I thought the TV licence example was helpful since they fit your criteria re utility bills below.

yes that does sound ridiculous, but spare a thought for the alternatives and the situation.

you're a utilities company with millions of customers. you have a massive automated system whereby people who don't pay are dealt with in some way. you cant be concerned with whether or not someone forgot to pay, or the cheque got lost etc. etc. , you have to draw a line and say that if someone pays x days late, there's going to be action. it used to be that people got cut off all the time, but that doesnt happen now (i think the law changed?), so there will be court threat letters etc. etc.

there is, and should be, a penalty for paying bills late. the direct debit system has its own version of that. it seems that for many people the penalty for not paying direct debits is too high (even without the spiral effect), but perhaps it's needed to make people pay attention to their bank account as many people don't.

now im not trying to give all the answers there, im just trying to understand that there are always 2 sides to a story. but really it doesnt matter to me what the reasons are because im happy to understand that if i dont pay my bills on time etc. then somewhere some corporate body has it set up so that i'll suffer! i dont blame them, because if i ran a business and people didnt pay for their goods and services, i would do the same. and because i dont blame them i leave the penalty setting to them, and look after my business which is paying the bill or making sure my bank account doesnt run out of money.
I want to give you another scenario, you are a business and if people's card are declined you simply do not offer them the goods. Unfortunately, banks will not only decline services ie the service of paying a cheque/DD/SO but they will charge you for that non service and if that non service leads to you needing to "inadvertently" increase your overdraft they will charge you for that service. So, a non service, or maybe we can say consideration you are charged. It terms of your business would you charges someone for considering whether to give them the goods or not?(I hope the analogy is better now).
the problem with this campaign is that its focus is on the charges that the banks make to bad customers. it seems to completely ignore that fact that people should pay their bills on time and should manage their accounts. it supplies no alternative methodology or advide to those customers, it ignores their responsibilities, and simply attacks all bank charges.
But people who are in credit pay for that lack of anything since they forgo interest in exchange for a lesser amount. The advice to those customers is that credit or loans are available at a cheaper rate since those who do not manage their accounts well to use your terminology can receive the same service but for a higher payment, its called risk based pricing which is on loans.
from my point of view, if you cant manage your own responsibilities, you have no business criticising other people's. in the majority of cases the campaign is simply an attempt to make the banks change the way it charges its customers, on behalf of customers who should be managing their money better in the first place. for the rest of the cases, a lot of which are unfair, its not right that people get stung for hundreds of pounds for a one off offence, with one charge leading to another (in that way its like a hidden charge, and too complicated to expect the average person to take on board). as i said before perhaps the campaign should have focused on them. but even in those cases, there has to be some note that it was possible to avoid by the customer by having some sort of financial buffer, or not paying by direct debit etc.
The original focus of the campaign was on the way that banks treated customers. The problem has also been that for example, collections departments of banks are targetted for income and not for bringing accounts back into "normality". If that was the case then I think we would have better management of accounts but we have reasonable requests being declined by the banks for repayment or the repayment plans not being made clear. The problem with the assumption on the buffer is that life remains on a smooth course. It doesn't happen that way. We have people in society with mental health issues, people who's relationship breaks down and revenge can be monetarily, people with addictions etc,etc,.
People who killed themselves because of the debts that they had, we have no way of knowing whether they tried to help themselves or tried and contacted banks.
In the early days of the campaign it was about reclaiming and opening a new account sometimes called the "parachute" account which would mean a new start. Not everyone later on looked at their finances as much as what they could get back. Unfortunately, it happened in some cases.
there are probably unspoken millions who have come on this website because they heard they could get some money. they arent posting on the forums, because they dont care. they downloaded a couple of forms and got a couple of grand they werent entitled to. they should have to learn from their mistakes like everyone else, but this campaign has made them into special cases, and distorted the meaning of the word "consumer". thats wrong, its wrong on a mass scale, and im glad its stopped.

The campaign never sought to make any special cases, but there is a part of me nodding my head. not at the way you are presenting the campaign but the way that some of it will have been.

You're last point, I am afraid I must quote you from Mark Twain:

"News of its' death has been greatly exaggerated!"

pingchris

Cleany wrote: »

you think people are that stupid? that their utterly helpless against the tirade of confusing dates and that no matter how hard they tried the bank have made billions out of the poor lost and helpless wondering brainless idiots. is painting that kind of picture of people worth the money?

perhaps more likely a scenario is that a consumer society brought up with ever increasing amounts of expendible cash and greed for the latest gadgets and time saving devices has become addicted to spending money, so badly, that it's willing to forgo intelligence and responsibility for it?

yep we are all homer simpsons

Cleany

natweststaffmember wrote: »

I want to give you another scenario, you are a business and if people's card are declined you simply do not offer them the goods. Unfortunately, banks will not only decline services ie the service of paying a cheque/DD/SO but they will charge you for that non service and if that non service leads to you needing to "inadvertently" increase your overdraft they will charge you for that service. So, a non service, or maybe we can say consideration you are charged. It terms of your business would you charges someone for considering whether to give them the goods or not?(I hope the analogy is better now).

1. Yes that situation sounds crazy.

2. My criticism is that the campaign is about all bank charges, not just specific situations.

3. But even then, you don't have to pay by direct debit, and the bank doesnt have to have you as a customer. If you don't like their services, don't use them!

natweststaffmember wrote: »

But people who are in credit pay for that lack of anything since they forgo interest in exchange for a lesser amount. The advice to those customers is that credit or loans are available at a cheaper rate since those who do not manage their accounts well to use your terminology can receive the same service but for a higher payment, its called risk based pricing which is on loans.

Not sure what you're saying here, sorry.

natweststaffmember wrote: »

The original focus of the campaign was on the way that banks treated customers. The problem has also been that for example, collections departments of banks are targetted for income and not for bringing accounts back into "normality". If that was the case then I think we would have better management of accounts but we have reasonable requests being declined by the banks for repayment or the repayment plans not being made clear.

I think that no matter what happens, people will be people and run up debt and credit. It's not the banks responsibility to manage people's accounts, and nor should it be!

natweststaffmember wrote: »

The problem with the assumption on the buffer is that life remains on a smooth course. It doesn't happen that way. We have people in society with mental health issues, people who's relationship breaks down and revenge can be monetarily, people with addictions etc,etc,.

Life hardly ever never runs on a smooth course, that's why you need a buffer. If people are going to deny this and blame everyone but themselves for the situation, then it's no wonder they get into trouble.

natweststaffmember wrote: »

People who killed themselves because of the debts that they had, we have no way of knowing whether they tried to help themselves or tried and contacted banks.

I would advise you not to use pity for suicide as an argument for this campaign. There's no evidence that they are related, and in many people consider suicide to be a completely selfish act.

natweststaffmember wrote: »

In the early days of the campaign it was about reclaiming and opening a new account sometimes called the "parachute" account which would mean a new start. Not everyone later on looked at their finances as much as what they could get back. Unfortunately, it happened in some cases.

Don't really know what you mean here.

natweststaffmember wrote: »

The campaign never sought to make any special cases, but there is a part of me nodding my head. not at the way you are presenting the campaign but the way that some of it will have been.

You're last point, I am afraid I must quote you from Mark Twain:

"News of its' death has been greatly exaggerated!"

From my point of view the problem behind all this is a lack of people taking responsibility for their affairs. I think that's wrong, and really quite sad. I can't see that the success of this campaign would have resulted in anything but encouraging millions of people to take even less responsibility for their affairs.

We will see what happens!