800,000% overdrafts

thatsean

Love these articles. People can't find enough hours in the day to check a bank balance before using their debit card, or read business terms and conditions, but not short of the time to come on here and !!!!ing cry about getting charged.

I got charged £0 by Barclays last month, and the same before that.... because I can manage a bank account.

lanza

Andystriker wrote: »

Did you also ask them to wipe your @rse for you as well?

yes i did that also.

lanza

thatsean wrote: »

Love these articles. People can't find enough hours in the day to check a bank balance before using their debit card, or read business terms and conditions, but not short of the time to come on here and !!!!ing cry about getting charged.

I got charged £0 by Barclays last month, and the same before that.... because I can manage a bank account.

Yes well some people love logging on to the internet to make smug arguments knowing full well they are wrong thinking its going to wind other people up.

try another mug ..

ill read through this thread and see if there is any actual intelligent discussion on this topic to be had.

lanza

tagq2 wrote: »

lanza, how did you manage to negotiate special terms on your debit card contract with the bank?

In response to your more general essay, why do you have a debit card? Why do you have a bank account?

You may be misunderstanding the relationship a commercial bank and/or its staff have with its customers.

I have a debit card to save the hassle of going to the cash machine when paying for the usual everyday piffle.

So what misunderstanding are you referring to ?

Previous to the santander skam loan shark trap ..sorry i mean nicely designed service for the customer i had a prepaid debit card.

now for some reason that could never go into a negative balance.

why ? well somewhere a computer somewhere has to look at your balance before it authorizes a withdrawal. Yet the santander and all the banks allow these little ten/twenty pound over-runs. And then they charge you 25 quid a whack, and they start a ratchet interest on that, and then they dont tell you its happening, and you cant check your balance where you make the payment... so requiring you to go off to a cashline to check some mistake has not occurred on your account or some other problem, and there by the debit card is off no use, because you might as well just go to cash machines in the first place.

Yet i never had these problems with the pre-paid debit card..

the whole thing is a scam pretty obviously to anybody with a brain, i have spoken to.. and now the entire press (but presumably they are just trying to sensationalize this and cannot be trusted)

The only people who do no think its a scam are some strange people logging on for a smug pathetic rub salt in the wounds trip.

Well i suppose its requires a level of Machiavellian intelligence to practise the art of online windup.... so hey respect and power to that in a schoolboy prank level kind of spotty teen kind of way.

lanza

the only reason the pre-paid cards dont have all these scam traps is they dont have the infrastructure or a monopoly to get away with these scams..

I like the comsumer action group approach, but it has to go further. The fact is the internet has a massive power. As there in no international libel law, it will be quite practical to have sites the name and shame with photographs the people who devise, implement and go along with these dubious policies. The reason they go to all the trouble to get these resources by devising schemes to screw people legally by deception and small print is they like being successful.

Well if their status is stripped of them online, their money will be worth a lot less. They might as well be rich criminals, which i dont think these people want, other wise they would go for that life. They like being able to live in normal communities and be seen as those who do well for themselves. They like that status.

lanza

i see my attempt at naming and shaming was deleted. come on guys, have some balls. this is the only way we are going to win this battle. Playing them any other way is going to have a very limited effect. They are too slippery and enjoy outdoing anything these groups can do (as we have seen with them beating the OFT and now getting away with upping rates to 800,000%....why ...because they can.

Go straight for their social status. Use the power of the internet. Social status is a big part of the motivation for their activity. If they are named and shamed as losers then perhaps the ladies wont breed with them, and we can start to reduce the numbers of these scum from our gene pool.

thatsean

lanza wrote: »

Yes well some people love logging on to the internet to make smug arguments knowing full well they are wrong thinking its going to wind other people up.

try another mug ..

ill read through this thread and see if there is any actual intelligent discussion on this topic to be had.

Lanza, I don't give a toss if it winds you up or not. My point is that people should take responsibility for what they do. People who keep an eye on their money, and know when payments are coming out don't get charged. People who don't manage things closely and run close to limits do. It's that simple. It's easier for some however to come online and crow about how nothing is their fault.

opinions4u

lanza wrote: »

i see my attempt at naming and shaming was deleted. come on guys, have some balls. this is the only way we are going to win this battle.

What a ridiculous statement. The price of long life milk appears to have risen by 40% at my local Tesco. Naming and shaming the checkout staff will achieve zip all.

Go straight for their social status. Use the power of the internet. Social status is a big part of the motivation for their activity. If they are named and shamed as losers then perhaps the ladies wont breed with them, and we can start to reduce the numbers of these scum from our gene pool.

you really need to see a doctor. Hitler had similar ideas.

tagq2

lanza wrote: »

I have a debit card to save the hassle of going to the cash machine when paying for the usual everyday piffle.

So it's not because of some fundamental need? It's just to save a bit of hassle - the sort of hassle that the majority of the country would have put up with, say, 20 years ago.

So what misunderstanding are you referring to ?

(1) A debit card is a luxury service with lots of strings attached. It's provided by a business which would like to make money by providing you this service. You can live an urban or suburban lifestyle fairly easily without a debit card. Just because everyone else has or wants a debit card or an iPhone it doesn't mean you need a debit card or an iPhone;

(2) To do business a bank hires many staff well below median wage who must follow the bank's instructions. Many of these people would in the current climate would otherwise be destitute - contrary to the opinion in certain newspapers, you cannot forever refuse jobs you don't like and continue collecting some allowance. While some idealists might argue that living in poverty is somehow more honourable, "naming and shaming" people for not doing so is absurd. People on the shop floor may be on your side, you know? And those "lies" may be information they've given to the best of their knowledge or things they've been told to say.

(3) If you object to how banks charge - and it seems a reasonable objection - the solution is not to knowledgeably get into a small amount of debt and then throw up a fuss about that debt. Perhaps you're trying to present some sort of civil disobedience justification, but see (1): you're objecting to a luxury which you agreed to and (assuming you didn't really manage to negotiate special terms with Santander) which you then used to give you credit in the manner described in the agreement. The judiciary have found your stated obligations in return for the privilege of an overdraft enforceable.

You have at least two available routes:

• Help stop yourself and others going into debt - they can't collect a charge for a service they haven't provided. This could even refusal to participate in the current system: you don't need a debit card and, while it's tough to get away with no form of account, you certainly can live with a minimum feature account e.g. with cash card from the least bank-y bank you can find;
• Campaign for legislation limiting charges a lender can impose for giving credit. Consider ML's supporting caps on the cost of a pay day loan. Wearing a less laissez-faire hat you might argue that PDL companies have no place at all and that such legislation is more appropriate even for more responsible lenders, e.g. banks.

(FWIW this argument doesn't admit all "fair" smallprint - shrinkwrap software EULAs, I would say, are absurd beasts, and AIUI Germany acknowledged this partly by considering them unenforceable unless explicitly agreed to before purchase.)

Previous to the santander skam loan shark trap ..sorry i mean nicely designed service for the customer i had a prepaid debit card.

It's nicely designed for the bank, providing the minimum service possible at the minimum cost to keep enough customers to satisfy whatever the business goals are.

you cant check your balance where you make the payment...

What do you think people did before debit cards and ATMs and telephone and Internet banking?

Pleasecarry around a piece of paper (or its electronic equivalent) and record each purchase you make. If you still have a cheque book then there's a bit at the back for this purpose because this is exactly how people were expected to manage their money.

the whole thing is a scam pretty obviously to anybody with a brain, i have spoken to..

The whole thing is business in a free-ish market. You can legitimately object to that sort of ideology and you can campaign to put curbs on it but you cannot object on the grounds that you aren't getting what's expected.

The only people who do no think its a scam are some strange people logging on for a smug pathetic rub salt in the wounds trip.

I sympathise. I really don't care to see anyone suffer for any reason, no matter whether they've been stupid or ignorant or even malicious. I'm a smelly hippie like that. But you need to understand what's going on and think about how to fix the problem (both for yourself in the short term and in general in the long term) rather than wave your arms in the air and shout the names of people who don't have any more power than you. Unite rather than make enemies.

meer53

lanza wrote: »

i see my attempt at naming and shaming was deleted. come on guys, have some balls. this is the only way we are going to win this battle. Playing them any other way is going to have a very limited effect. They are too slippery and enjoy outdoing anything these groups can do (as we have seen with them beating the OFT and now getting away with upping rates to 800,000%....why ...because they can.

Go straight for their social status. Use the power of the internet. Social status is a big part of the motivation for their activity. If they are named and shamed as losers then perhaps the ladies wont breed with them, and we can start to reduce the numbers of these scum from our gene pool.

Naming people on an internet forum for just doing their job is a pretty childish thing to do. What "battle" do you think you are going to win by doing this ? Your comments are extremely offensive and just show how ignorant you really are. Takre responsibility for YOUR life, stop blaming others for your failures, do you not have a calculator ? It's not rocket science.