Don't blame the campaigners for the end of free banking Blog Discussion

azjh77

When my husband started his job we were told he would be paid £900, he was paid £200, this didn't cover the mortgage/council tax/gas/electric dd's and we were charged 4 times £30 We were then £120 short plus had to still find the money to pay the bills. We didn't have an overdraft as we had never needed one. We are not all !!!!less,reckless rule breakers. £30 IS an excessive charge.

Mark7799

I agree £30 is an excessive charge - end of.

The idea of the overdraft is not that you "had never needed one" but that there may be a time in the future when you may need one. It's there for an emergency to buy time and give some space to sort finances out properly.

System

When MrJudi and i seperated for a time we divided the money in our joint bank account into 2 which covered the food and bills for a month. It them 5 months to sort out my rent to a private landlord, meanwhile, my landlord still needed paying. Luckily, i could plead to my landlords better nature but she may not have been so understanding.

ollyk

Edinburghlass wrote: »

From Martin's article...

• Imagine you go over your overdraft once and are then charged fines for bounced cheques and direct debits. This leaves you £100 down, a sum you can’t afford to repay, leading to more fines the next month, and so it continues, snowballing. This tragic scenario can put people thousands in debt for one simple mistake (read one woman’s story in my blog).

Absolutely delighted to read Chrissie's success story some time after Martin wrote the above blog.

I would love to see ONE single case, where a person, who has been quite savvy with money (i.e. not spent their wage on fridays and saturdays) to make that one mistake, then approach the bank, explain the situation and NOT get some sort of help from the bank. I bet it wouldn't happen! which is why as far as i'm concerned that is not a valid argument!
Please someone show me a similar scenario with a bit of evidence to back it up.

ollyk

Twopints wrote: »

I note that none of the "blame Martin" brigade have answered this question.

Or indeed this one:



Or even this one:

do you understand the meaning of 'unlawful' in this instance?

Twopints

Yes, thanks.

Edinburghlass_2

ollyk wrote: »

I would love to see ONE single case, where a person, who has been quite savvy with money (i.e. not spent their wage on fridays and saturdays) to make that one mistake, then approach the bank, explain the situation and NOT get some sort of help from the bank. I bet it wouldn't happen! which is why as far as i'm concerned that is not a valid argument!
Please someone show me a similar scenario with a bit of evidence to back it up.

I think you'll find I linked to that ONE single case in my post

Twopints

ollyk wrote: »

do you understand the meaning of 'unlawful' in this instance?

And the banks certainly understand it given their desperation to avoid a case actually being heard in court : Unreasonable banks, shurely shome mishtake?

MarkyMarkD

azjh77 wrote: »

When my husband started his job we were told he would be paid £900, he was paid £200, this didn't cover the mortgage/council tax/gas/electric dd's and we were charged 4 times £30 We were then £120 short plus had to still find the money to pay the bills. We didn't have an overdraft as we had never needed one. We are not all !!!!less,reckless rule breakers. £30 IS an excessive charge.

Two points:

- the minute your husband's pay went in, he could have asked his bank for a short-term overdraft to cover the shortfall and he wouldn't have been charged £120;
- the overdraft is your husband's employer's fault and they should compensate him for the £120, so the amount in question should be irrelevant.

azjh77

'The minute it went in?' To be honest I didn't check it till we went to Asda on the Sunday, bit late by then as all the d/d's came out on Monday. Perhaps I was foolish to assume his employer had actually paid him the correct amount. Our account is a basic one with no o/d or credit facilities. We got no compenstion from his work either...'our own falut for not checking'

And I'd like to pint out I didn't swear in my post! It has 'bleeped' a word! is '!!!!less' swearing?