MSE News: Conservative/Lib Dem government brings bank charges hope

toffe

I doubt any action will taken to force banks to refund bank charge reclaimers but what would be nice is to see a limit imposed on what they can charge in future and the outlawing of charging charges for charges.

Take my own example, i was charged £3,600 off the back of 1 missed direct debit after i lost my job in the recession, it was my mistake, i thought i had cancelled the direct debit but i hadn't, the £35 charge took me over my overdraft by less than a pound, no further direct debits were missed yet i was charged every month thereafter while my pleas for consideration as financial hardship went unheard.

Now, considering that my bank never actually paid the direct debit they did not lend me any money but charged me £3,600 for, well for not doing anything.

Why do we as a nation, and why to our government, see this practise as acceptable yet we are quick to label loan providers such as provident and log books loans as "scum" and "loan sharks" at least these people actually lent their victims some money before they robbed them.

Provident may charge up to 500% APR on their loans but can some one tell me, what is the APR on a loan of nil with 12 month total repayable of £3,600?

Nick clegg said it in his own words, banks are ripping us off! Well cleggy (who i did vote for incidentally), What you gonna do about it now you have managed to wing that deputy prime minister job?

Lets hope the answer isn't the same as the labour, i.e. nothing!.

WestonDave

I think any hopes raised in this way will ultimately prove to be false. Refunding bank charges is somewhat controversial - those that have incurred them tend to think forcing refunds is a good idea - others think that its tough luck/poor management etc. Because its not a mainstream populist idea, its not going to get airtime at the moment from a vote winning perspective.

Coupled with this is the fact that it would appear that the Government is looking at clobbering the banks via a tax on transactions. That puts money in the Governments coffers and means that both the deficit can be reduced and it doesn't have to make tax increases (which are of course "their fault"). I suspect therefore that whatever money can be screwed out of banks without threatening their stability/viability will come via a banking tax, rather than making the banks give a "windfall rebate" to a small number of customers.

I'm not making any value judgements about whether this is the right course or not - clearly those on low incomes with large claims in will think its not right, whereas those with nothing to claim but who might suffer from tax rises might not be bothered - however I can't see this now being high on the agenda. Capping charges for the future is more likely, although far from certain with a market oriented Government in place.

toffe

Also it seems from i see on the news that Cameron has adopted cleggs motto of "a fairer Britain" albeit along side his own "responsible Britain"

So how does that apply to banking and charges?

Sure we as consumers should be learning from the bank charges campaign to be more "responsible" for our accounts, we should realise that our banks are not really looking to help us as they like to claim they are looking to monetise each and every ones of us, make no mistake, when your bank manager looks at you all he sees is a wad of pound notes with clothes on.

We must be vigilant about not incurring charges and take "responsibility" but banks should also have to take "responsibility" and that should mean being forced, by our government, to face up to the fact that they, right now, are some of the poorest performing businesses in the uk and it is their own fault, so they do not deserve any bonuses until they have repaid every penny of the tax payers money they had to beg from Gordon Brown to prevent their collapse. That would be the banks "taking responsibility" for their actions, it would also in my view be "fair", after all why should they pay themselves bonus for failure when they owe us Billions?

If the above happened we would all (banks included) be made to take "responsibility" going forward, all we need now is “fairness” going forward and all we need for that is a limit on what banks can charge, just like we have with credit cards, and a ban on snowballing charges and there we have it, the banks get to charge but at a fair and reasonable rate.

And in one forum post I have solved the problem of how to make banking “fairer” and more “responsible” in this country. Should have Ran In the General Election.. :rotfl: