Is this a loophole?

ewan_husahmi

ILW wrote: »

As a businessman, I would have thought a tight control of cash and knowing the bank situation at any time was critical. Better to just stay within the limits rather than getting charged and moaning about it.

Yes to both points.

Realistically, have you tried getting an accurate up-to-the-minute bank balance? There's always a delay in recording when it comes to knowing exactly how much you can spend. But they're bang-up-to-the-minute when it comes to working out you've crossed the line.

So the bank's systems aren't perfect, that's fine. But then a bit of humanity wouldn't go amiss.

Besides, what's wrong with just saying 'no, sorry' and leaving it at that, like any other business?

ewan_husahmi

Alpine_Star wrote: »

As a legal principle the test case has established that the banks have complete discretion to charge what they like for the service of consideration and it doesn't get anymore complicated than that.

Yes they do, but does that really give them licence to engineer systems that actively trip people up? And is that not an area where they can still be challenged?

ewan_husahmi

What I'm talking about here people is banks setting a transparent and 'fair' set of rules, but then engineering complicated systems that make it harder than necessary for the customer to stick to those rules.

Are these not two seperate issues? The former has been settled, the latter not.

Alpine_Star

We have to accept that the law recognises the principles of a free market.

The Supreme Court ruled that the level of the charges themselves cannot be challenged but did not preclude a challenge to the unfairness of any imbalance in the contract due to the charges.

ewan_husahmi

Alpine_Star wrote: »

We have to accept that the law recognises the principles of a free market.

The Supreme Court ruled that the level of the charges themselves cannot be challenged but did not preclude a challenge to the unfairness of any imbalance in the contract due to the charges.

Thanks, but looking beyond the contract, my point is about the systems.

The most secure and sophisticated computer network in the world can't apparently give me an accurate balance, but I'm expected to know my balance to the penny.

I say the systems are worse than they need to be. The rules and the system are different things, but they can only be as good as each other.

ewan_husahmi

As to the law recognising the free market:

the law has as its very bread and butter the fact that a totally unencumbered free market is a fundamentally barbaric notion.

Okay, that's enough.
Think I got that off my chest, and got some very useful answers. Thanks people.

Smasher

ewan_husahmi wrote: »

Yes, the answer makes sense, thanks for the explanation.
Of course the situation makes no sense: I run a business, if my customers ask me if I want to do a job I can't charge them for my reply.

Even Ryan Air don't do that, and we know they would if they could. So in most cases this is not deemed lawful behaviour, hasn't the court got this wrong?

It was perhaps the way the case was challenged rather than the judgement being wrong. It seems the OFT were very limited in their arguments.

What is more worrying is that with this ruling, any company who has potentially unlawful or fraudulent terms in their T&Cs from which they make vast profits, can simply re-draw the contracts, dress up the dodgy bits as services and the OFT is powerless to them.

Can you imagine your milkman updating his terms to add a clause that cleaning your doorstep is part of the service and saying "I decided not to clean your doorstep today, so I've charged you £20 for the consideration". Last week, he decided not to clean it on tuesday, wednesday and thursday, so there's another £60 on your bill this month.

Fortunately, a milkman couldn't possibly get away with it even if this ruling does deem such practices perfectly fair and legal, because -
a) he doesn't have access to your income
b) the majority of Britain's employers don't requre you to have a milkman if you want to get paid..

I'd be willing to bet that we'll start seeing these types of consideration charges turn up in other types of contracts in future, for example utilities..

ewan_husahmi

Thanks for that, Smasher.

In fact I was rather generous to Ryan Air. Already some of the low-cost airlines charge a high fee to call them to ask a question, even if you give up before they answer, they can't answer, the answer is unhelpful, or wrong.

If things are straighforward to begin with, there's no need to even call them. So they actually get paid more for being rubbish.

With the banks that is definitely the case - if transactions showed up immediately; if balances were up to the minute; if the figures were the same whether checked on the web, at the ATM, in the branch or on the phone; if they just said no at the point of sale; if they didn't authorise payments and then call them 'unauthorised'; if the working day ended at the end of the working day; if they knew the difference between 'can't' and 'refuse to'; or if their public duty matched their colossal influence over society; then their incomes would reflect the actual value of their efforts, and customers would at last know where they stand.

pingchris

there are a lot of excellent points being made in this section,after all is said and done,im sorry to say this yet again,its a financial con trick manipulated by banks,and its as black and white as that.trying to prove how the con works and how it is wrong is gonna be a trick also,very tricky.

ewan_husahmi

Hi PingChris
thanks for the support.

Whether it's complacency or consipracy I don't know, but it is a con, because the consumer is being tricked into breaking the rules, unless they have masses of cash to leave in the bank.

As for proving how it works, you only have to ask a poor person.

The OFT have been looking in the wrong place. With the greatest of respect to civil servants, most do not live near the bread line. So the OFT may understand the rules, but they do not have first hand experience of the subtle traps that are built into them, or of how the banks manouever people towards them.