Current Account Charges - Why I have no sympathy

Tootsie_Roll

dchurch24 wrote:

Why should they charge me when I haven't got any money?

I find this quite intrieging.

If I haven't enough funds available to pay a DD for say, my gas bill, then what business is it of the banks?

None. At all. It's a private matter between me and a supplier of a service that I have chosen to have. Nothing to do with the bank at all.

So it doesn't get paid. That is still a matter for me and my supplier.

I haven't asked the bank to pay it for me, and indeed, they haven't. I have no problem with that.

I have a problem with the fact that they take it upon themselve to steal £35 from me and then charge me another £30 for going overdrawn because of it.

I either have an overdraft or I don't. They should make up their minds.

You keep saying that I should have had a 'rainy day' fund. My reply is there would not have been any need for one if the banks hadn't taken the £35 then the £30 would there?

The only need in that case would have been for me to have the money aside to pay the gas bill, which would have turned up a few days later in any case when the wages finally arrived.

What can you not understand about that?



So you are saying that because a business that I am effectively forced to use cannot operate within the bounds of the law, I have to sign up to a very bad and expensive service from the same untrustworthy organisation?

Good thinking!

Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear.

This guy is a raving lunatic.

dchurch24

It makes me a lunatic to expect a bank to keep out of my business?

The banks are acting unlawfully, of that there is no doubt. If they hadn't made unlawful charges I would never have been in a bad position; I would just have been a few days late paying a few bills due to something outside of my control.

Banks have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted - why would I want to borrow money from one of them to pay made up charges that, at best, are unlawful?

If that makes me a lunatic, then so be it. At least I'm not a brainwashed lunatic who either a) looks out only for number one, or b) is too scared to stand up to anyone who has ripped me off.

Paul_Herring

yeslek wrote:

and tell me if you think this is fair - i was with halifax a few years back, my employer messed up my wages and did not pay me at on the 28th

[bank charges resulted]

so i believe i am well within my right to claim these charges back (which again happened the next month thanks to argos)

What makes you believe that your work isn't the one responsible for your bank charges, and it should have been them that you claimed off? Any reasonable employer that causes you hardship by paying you late should be the one you claim from.

Please don't quote 'unlawful level of charges' (irrelevant since if the level of charges /was/ lawful, you wouldn't be able to claim them from the bank anyway, and you certainly would have been out of pocket) or 'having to prove the charges were lawful' (as pointed out earlier in the thread, you don't need to prove this, merelyt that they were made.) I realise that this requires a little suspension of belief, but I really fail to see why the first port of call to blame is the bank, and not the 3rd party that caused the problem in the first place.

then the cherry on top was that due to this first fault on my account i was not allowed an over draft (which i applied for the same day i was supposed to be paid).

Hindsight being 20/20, and a wonderful thing etc... I think it was leaving it a little late by then. I do hope you now have an overdraft that you can rely on, if necessary, now?

dchurch24

(as pointed out earlier in the thread, you don't need to prove this, merelyt that they were made.)

And if the employer had refused to pay the charges, what then?

Graham_Devon

dchurch24 wrote:

And if the employer had refused to pay the charges, what then?

D, Are you really 100% convinced that your charges have nothing to do with you whatsoever?

I.e. your convinced you don't need a fund that you can live on should you lose your job for instance? Would that be the banks fault also because you have no money left?

Are you really convinced that it was the banks fault that your employer messed up your wages, and you didnt financially plan, therefore, you hit the bank, not yourself, not your employer, even though, in reality, first off it was your employers fault and secondly, yours?

4 or 5 pages and everything people say to you, all you come back with is 'I don't need a rainy day fund' and 'it's all the banks fault'.

You need to get a grasp of the fact that banks are doing what they do. They are a business. Therefore, you act yourself to combat these charges, not by letting them happen in the first place, but getting yourself a little stash which you can use to pay for stuff.

I don't think theres much we can do to even get you thinking even slightly different. To you, everything is the banks fault and they have nothing to do with your finances and direct debits. In reality, they have everything to do with it. One day, when you wake up to this fact, you might be able to combat the charges by helping yourself and not getting hit in the first place.

Your employer has an obligation to you to pay you, just as you have an obligation to get up in the morning and work for them.

Your employer probably would have paid something towards the charges, probably not all, as although you think your completely at no fault here, they could argue that you should be able to look after yourself and should have some kind of backup plan.

Phatmouse

Somewhere in this world their is a new life being born the sun is shining and laughter is in the air.

I say leave them to it, I know its hard because I keep sneeking a look to see what they are saying too.
But rise above it, don't even converse with them, DO NOT GIVE THEM THE SATISFACTION. Bitterness will eat them up!

We will always need banks, they are not refunding charges to save face and gain customers they are doing it as they have taken the money unlawfully and are required to, they will not give up what they do not have too.

Someone should tell Chris Martin about it, £35 a DD is just not fair trade.

If you are planting a coconut tree and the world is about to end, continue to plant that tree as life will go on people. So why don't you all go and do something nice.

oldwiring

Is bankuptcy sucb a soft option? Ok the period efore discharge may be reduced, but is it not flexible and not guaranteed that it will be, depending on the debtor's behaviour before? I wouls not like to guarantee that approaching a bank for an acount, expect perhaps for a basic one, will be a doddle either. I put it that a mature person with a gap in or any caginess about history would set the nose twitching. In a climate of consolidation and current or recent experience of bad debts that nose might be in more accute use.

The assumption also is that the banks do not see a debtor's bankruptcy as beneficial to them. True, as generally from my expereince of working in insolvency claims for a government department any unsecured creditor got little or nothing once fees had been extracted. Better to leave it to someone else! OTOH, where there are assets and a better chance of recovery of some part of the debt calling in the debt may be the remedy for a rotten customer.

BTW, there is an alternative to bankrptcy- a voluntary arrangment.

regularsaver1

This pathetic - some people are so passionate about things, in that they hurt others in the process

Please bear in mind that everyones circumstances and opinions are different - and we should all respect that

This isn't about a few people saving the world and hurting people in the process

MPH80

BTW, there is an alternative to bankrptcy- a voluntary arrangment.

But - the reason for my post about bankruptcy was about people who are so hard up they can't afford more than a blanket!

An IVA requires you to have some surplus to pay to your creditors after your monthly living expenses. Without the surplus - no IVA will be agreed to.

For anyone who is so on the breadline that they are being charged into hell and they have no assets to go for then they weren't going to get decent credit anyway - so yes - bankruptcy is a soft option for them.

M.

oldwiring

MPH80 wrote:

But - the reason for my post about bankruptcy was about people who are so hard up they can't afford more than a blanket!

An IVA requires you to have some surplus to pay to your creditors after your monthly living expenses. Without the surplus - no IVA will be agreed to.

For anyone who is so on the breadline that they are being charged into hell and they have no assets to go for then they weren't going to get decent credit anyway - so yes - bankruptcy is a soft option for them.

M.

I was not actually referring to any particular post- just pointing out there is an alternative . Yes, the cases have to be suitable for the alternative, I agree, but surely there is no harm in inforamtion being given. As I posted elsewhere in the last couple of days, going bankrupt is not always cost free. Payments are sometimes necesssry up front.