MSE News: CONFIRMED - OFT gives up bank charges battle

nippyone

chrisharri wrote: »

Thank you Natweststaffmember and Rachity. You both talk sense!

I agree. And to think I nearly replied to those previous quotes by G_M - glad I left it until I had read them all - and sense prevailed!

jkc_2

bank charges dont effect me, but lately I hear my brother complaining that the bank RBS have taken charges of 20 pounds again. and because they were overdrawn last month they will take another 20 pounds.This familly is on the breadline and its christmas, I am really angry.I am thinking of transferring my business to a post office account in protest, I dont have a morgatge or loan, I have two direct debits how easy will it be to transfer and is the post office linked to any of the big banks? if enough people do this will it amount to enough of a boycott. basically the banks have everyones income going through their current accounts and theres no competition, so we have no choice but to use it and be screwed for doing so. what does every one thinkreg jkc

Morglin

The Post Office banking system does seem to have links to UK banks anyway:

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/jump1?mediaId=19700174&catId=19400181

For anyone wanting to keep track of their money on the PC, we use the Microsoft Money programme.

It keeps track, reminds when payments are due, and works out balances, projections etc.,

Lin

esmerellda

I have a Lloyds basic account. I opened it in July 2009. In the branch.

I only get quarterly statements - they wont let me have monthly.

I can only use a Lloyds cash machine - even to view a balance. There isnt one in my village.

Thus I dont use that account and have continued using my post office card account instead.

I got the lloyds account for when I start working. Before taking it out I wasnt told about the quarterly statements or the restricted ATM access, and I didnt think to ask as monthly statements and Link machines, to me, are a minimum expectation of an account. I wasnt shown the terms before opening, despite opening in branch, and no one has explained charges etc. Four weeks after opening the account in branch, I received a terms and conditions leaflet in the post.

Not really making any point, just saying, the bank KNOW my financial situation (just benefits) and have made it as hard as possible, if I had to use the account, for me to keep an eye on things. It could be 3 months before I would know if anything had gone wrong.

noh

esmerellda wrote: »

I got the lloyds account for when I start working. Before taking it out I wasnt told about the quarterly statements or the restricted ATM access, and I didnt think to ask as monthly statements and Link machines, to me, are a minimum expectation of an account. I wasnt shown the terms before opening, despite opening in branch, and no one has explained charges etc. Four weeks after opening the account in branch, I received a terms and conditions leaflet in the post.

Not really making any point, just saying, the bank KNOW my financial situation (just benefits) and have made it as hard as possible, if I had to use the account, for me to keep an eye on things. It could be 3 months before I would know if anything had gone wrong.

Lloyds offer internet banking. Can the account be viewed online?
You obviously have internet access.

Personally I would not sign up for anything if I hadn't read the T+Cs and made sure I understood them first.

Having looked at the Lloyds web site, I see the account can be viewed online and telephone banking is available. So it would be possible to check the account as often as you wished.

http://www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts/cash_account.asp

There is full guide to the account available from a link on the same page

http://www.lloydstsb.com/media/lloydstsb2004/pdfs/cash_account_wp_2Nov.pdf

and having read that I see they also offer a free service where they will text your balance to you weekly.

moo_cow

I think we can go on about this forever but the fact remains that there are still an awful lot of people not on the internet or not able to get daily access to their accounts. For example, my mum doesn't understand internet banking so is afraid of it and can't use it. She is hard of hearing so can't use the telebanking system as they don't speak clearly enough for her and her nearest ATM is around 5 miles away. As she's a disabled pensioner life can be difficult for her. She hasn't had a charge for years because she doesn't have direct debits as she had previously incurred 2 charges due to wrong amounts so cancelled them all. But the point is that life is not easy for many and as for most having internet access I can tell you now that there are only 3 households in my street that have internet access. admittedly we are only 16 houses, but percentage wise................................

noh

I agree with what you are saying.
Not everyone has internet access or can use the telephone.
Obviously all those on this forum have acces to the internet and it is not a valid arguement for those to say they don't have the means to keep track of their accounts.

Your mother and others in similar circumstances receive statements and no doubt keep a tight rein on their finances by reconciling their incomings and outgoings against the statements they receive.

You need to make an effort to keep track of your own finances whatever method you use.

moo_cow

Since incurring my horrendous spiral of charges with LTSB I changed banks (mainly to stop them from taking all of our income in one go to cover these charges). I now bank with Nationwide (not brilliant I know). I have to point out though that I found myself in a horrendous position about 2 months ago. I went to check my account to find that my car payment had gone belly up because EON had taken money from my account. Now I have NEVER had any dealings with this company. When I phoned I was told basically to take responsibility for setting the direct debit up and making sure that the money was in my account on time. After arguing for a few minutes with some right numpty I finally got the message across that I hadn't even heard of EON let alone set up a direct debit with them. It took them all day to sort it out, get my money back and boy did I have a headache from the fallout. Sorry to ramble on but, My point is that for people that have limited access their problem would have been much worse than mine if it had been a few days before it was noticed as many banks instantly hit peoples balances with charges.

moo_cow

'Your mother and others in similar circumstances receive statements and no doubt keep a tight rein on their finances by reconciling their incomings and outgoings against the statements they receive.'


yes she does have to keep a strict eye on things. But she always has and that didn't stop her from getting 2 charges previously. see my point...........................
all the budgeting in the world on a limited income will not make up for costly bank or company errors.
I have to add also that them hitting her account had upset her so much that she couldn't even deal with this herself. My sister had to do it and their attitude was appalling. My mum would never have a bank account by choice. But unfortunately everything has to be paid into an account of some sort these days. Most unfair !

noh

You and I agree in that it is vital to keep a close watch on your own bank accounts.
Mistakes do happen but if you keep a close watch they will be noticed quickly and action taken to minimise the effects.

My main issue is with those who put forward the excuse that they do not have the means to monitor their accounts when they plainly do.
At the most basic level they could write down their income and expenditure on paper and check thier actual balance by phone or at an ATM or by enquiring in branch.
All those on here have internet access but some claim that they didn't find out about charges until they had reached astronomical levels.

It's not the case that the means to monitor the accounts aren't available.
It's the will to do it thats missing in may cases.