Great 'Work in a bank? What should we know' Hunt

ujb_98

UK007BullDog wrote: »

Fraudsters will use any snippet of info to defraud the bank. The bank will find a way of getting the lost money back somehow which will NOT benefit the customers through higher fees and charges.

I am amazed at the many attempts the fraudsters do and the lengths they go through to get at other customers money.

The information posted by some of the posters here is in blatant breach of their contracts. There is nothing money saving about telling people how the system works.

I think you miss the point. By explaining how the system works it may allow people to save money by understanding the processes behind bank procedures and allowing bank customer to make informed choices as to whether to keep their business with that bank.

At the end of the day the choice of whether to disclose and what to disclose is up to the poster and unless you are a mod then you should not be here attempting to censor or stop it.

If you don't like the threat then leave, op sec is not in force here!

tonyfu

UK007BullDog wrote: »

To some of the posters here who used to work in a financial institution or still do. You are on very dangerous ice giving away insider knowledge. If someone gets wind of this you could be fired due to gross misconduct, and send to jail even if you no longer work for them. It states so in your contract and leaving docs so do not do it.

I am amazed and disappointed that Martin asks this of us, to comply we would have to break the law. If any of the lenders get wind of this thread then this site could be shut down faster than you could say 1 2 3. I would not jeopardise my future for this.

You know that you are not allowed to pass info like this on to the general public as it might help the fraudsters get an inside view of the banking procedure. You might not care if the bank or building society gets hit by fraud but its not nice if the general public gets hit by fraudsters who will then plunder their accounts and it will be a lot of hassle for them to prove it was not them themselves who did the dirty deed.

This is a bit over the top isn't it?! No-one is being asked or encouraged to break the law here and wasn't there a very clear warning at the beginning?

Has the banking industry got ethically dubious practices that it would rather keep hidden perhaps? Like mis-selling products that people don't need and don't benefit from, simply to increase already excessive profit margins? Some people (including myself) might describe this as banks taking advantage of people's ignorance / naivety / lack of knowledge about all things financial in order to make money out of them. This has certainly happened to me in the past and I think it's as disgraceful as fraudsters who take advantage of the elderly and other vulnerable people.

This site isn't about committing fraud, it's about levelling the playing field and helping people to understand how to play the system at its own game and defend themselves against attempts to get us to part with our hard earned cash to create huge profits for someone else, in my opinion.

If this site could be shut down as quickly as you claim then it's a shame that banks don't act as quickly to make a decisive impact against all the fraud that is being committed, by improving all the weaknesses in the systems (e.g. chip and pin). Less emphasis and resources invested in selling financial products and more emphasis on security would be a good starting point.

Tony

icequeen55uk

Hi, firstly I would like to say Thanks to all those people who (from the sounds of things) have risked trouble at work to help us learn how to deal with the banks better.

I have a question about Nationwide that I could really use some advice on please!!

My Partner stopped using his Flexaccount about a year ago, after we started getting his wages paid into my account to cover most of our DD's that came out from there. He left about a fiver in his account, cancelled all DD's and SO's etc. That was fine, no problems whatsoever, until about a month ago when he started getting letters from Solicitors and debt agencies claiming he owes Nationwide £150!! After doing a bit of research we discovered that one of his DD's (Union fee's of about £4 per month) was not cancelled, and they kept trying to pay it, with the result that he has been charged £150 in cumulative bounced DD charge and overdrawn charges. We are at a loss of how to deal with this, we cannot pay £150 at the moment (to be honest, since Tax Credits stopped paying us in 2005 and started chasing us for £2000 in overpayments, we can't afford to pay 50p let alone £150) and feel that this isnt completely our fault, especially as Nationwide has NEVER contacted him directly about this issue. If they had we would have dealt with it a long time ago. What makes it worse is that we had to get new car insurance in January, but the AA would not let payments come out of my bank account, only his. So, (not knowing about this debt) we set up the DD for his account. Well, obviously the DD has been refused and we are now being chased by the AA for £50 in payments, as well as having no car insurance! We were stupid (obviously) not to check his account before setting up the DD but as I said, he has not heard from Nationwide at all regarding this debt.

I apologise for the length of this post, but I am at my wits end. I am already being treated for depression, and I cannot mentally take any more worry about money. My partner, myself and our 2 kids have been struggling to live on an average of £300 per week for 2 years (He has to pay £90 per week in fuel costs to commute to work, so by the time you factor that in, plus rent, council tax, utilities etc, we have approx £80 per week for food, clothes etc) If anyone can advise us on how to deal with Nationwide...then please, please do so. I really am begging.

Thanks!

davey_browning

I used to work in a large bank's mortgage section. This might have been said already or be in other articles but just thought I would mention it.

Many people get an above 90% mortgage and normally the closer you go to getting a 100% mortgage the higher the interest rate will be. Thus if you get a 95% mortgage you might be pay 1% above the normal lending rate as the bank is taking more of a risk. Now what normally happens is that people just keep paying at this higher rate but you don't have to.

Lets say you buy a house for £100,000 and you have a 95% mortgage so you have borrowed £95,000, you are paying say 1% over the normal lending rate. If your house goes up in value (as so many have done) to say £110,000 your mortgage is no longer a 95% mortgage, it's now just over 86%. So what you can do is go back to your bank and ask for you to be taken off the higher lending rate. You might have to get a survey but a few hundred pounds for this will normally be paid back very quickly.

So many people were on these higher rates for years and years when their LTV (loan to value) rate was so much less than 90%, the banks are making a killing off this.

Good luck.

Dave

lswwong

I have just been pressurised by A+L to attend a review - they would not transfer my issue 2 ISA to an issue 3 unless I went into a branch to have such a 45 mins meeting.

Thanks Worry for telling it straight! I am going to cancel the review and transfer my ISA elsewhere. I knew they wanted to flog me products but I either don't need them or have market best ones already. Seems a waste of time - and I have little - to just go and get my ISA moved to issue 3.

Ytaya

purplecatlover wrote: »

and the other day they sent me a letter saying they were increasing my od, i have not asked for this and i asked them in january to reduce it and they did not. they have said the only way i can refuse this new od limit (for a lot more than i have atm) is in writing within 10 days. Is this also standard practice? (or is it punishment because i reclaimed charges and have refused all offers of loans and credit cards)

You can refuse your overdraft limit at any time, if you so wish. You may well need to put it in writing, but as far as I know there is no ten-day time limit! They're talking poo

skid112

I quite like the reviews. Had one ages ago at HSBC. At that time i had a mortgage (whoopee none now) with the woolwich and they talked me into an open plan if i transferred my account to them, i duly did but kept paying part wages into HSBC. At the review they said i wasn't earning enough for the premier account as my wages had dropped, when i explained they tried to sell me a mortagage and various other bits of rubbish. Two days later wrote to me saying charges on the account would now be £19.99 per month back dated for 4 years. Result closed account no charges and all previous charges reclaimed with interest and paid in full. Trouble is now open plan has gone to Barclays, i need new bank account now!!

rellim

Isn't it just blatantly obvious that the banks are going to sell you something when they ask you for a 'customer review'? Why would they want to save you money? What's in it for them?

RBS kept on badgering me for a review, until I finally gave in and made an appointment. The only way I could get them off my backs was by going in and saying, 'I don't want to waste your time, but I don't want a mortgage or a loan, and I don't have any money for savings'. The woman was a bit surprised but I think she appreciated the fact that I was being polite and they haven't called me back since!

squashy

jw1096 wrote: »

I usually dont leave till 5.15 either, however, we arent required to work an extra hour in the morning. I arrive between 8.30 and 8.45 - depending on whether I want to have breakfast at work or if I have an ATM key or not! I get paid for being in early enough to service the ATM.

Our salary isnt exactly bad - however, a lack of staff and a contract that says we have to work as many saturdays as required can lead to a few disagreements with the management :rolleyes: , but the overtime is good! We still have referral targets too, but we dont have to get 6 people a day to chat with the 'complex' advisor (now customer consultant), besides which, the diaries are usually packed full and there is not a lot of opportunity to put referrals over immediately. Our referalls are meant to be service based anyway, like being able to actually save/make someone some money - we dont do it hit targets!

The extra hour in the mornings was to service the ATMs (there were 4), and this was an agreed overtime so INCLUDED in the £8.5k salary! We weren't "allowed" to claim any overtime overand above this eg if we worked through lunch or stayed late.

I remember the arguments about the Saturdays too. I usually ended up working them all as my CSM made me make up the time from my ante-natal or orthodontics appointments midweek.

Re the targets, that's what they used to tell us too- "look how great our products are, it would be a shame if our customers didn't know about them!". There was still an agreed number of referrals you needed to get otherwise you were heading for trouble. Have they scrapped this now?

Maybe I just had a b*tch as a manager!

smithja

Can I please ask something in addition to a question I asked earlier in this threat. I opened a LTSB classic acc on 1 March. I would like a Gold acc, I have been told the decision is made by the amount of money going in and out of the account. Is there a particular point when the computer re-assess your risk, i.e say after the 6th months statement or can it happen at anytime? Also I saw a screen a member of staff was looking at and all I could make out were the words "High" one underneath the other. Do they use geodemographic data to decide can I have a Gold Acc? I ask this as I live in an area with one of the "worst" postcodes in the country, and know someone with one of the "most sought after" postcodes who was offered an account with what I perceive to be a lower credit score, and certainly less money going into the account per month.

Cheers

James