Compensation Culture

Flobberchops

veryintrigued wrote: »

Have these two paras been written by different people?

No, I don't think there's any real contradiction there.

Imagine going to a restaurant and your food is a little late in arriving. To make amends the waiter brings you a round of drinks on the house. It's a charming gesture that demonstrates your custom is valued.

Now imagine an entitled and belligerent diner who turns up at the restaurant expecting to be given free drinks, and to this end they'll nitpick and fuss about anything and everything. They neither need nor deserve the freebie, but staff will tend to let them have their way because it's marginally the path of least resistance.

It's an imperfect analogy of course, not least because it's a given that you will be paying for the meal, whereas basic banking services are generally free. OK, new analogy: somebody at a soup kitchen demanding compensation for their soup being tepid!

Just my personal view, of course.

Ballard

I had an issue with Santander a couple of years ago. I had made a payment on my 123 credit card so as to be able to make a purchase on it. As a result they didn’t take the minimum payment when that became due. Ordinarily this wasn’t a problem as it was during a 0% period but I needed the direct debit over another account to qualify for interest.

I queried this with Santander but they were acting in accordance with their t&cs. I thanked them and admitted that I was completely at fault but they still offered me £15. I repeated that they weren’t to blame but the lady still offered me the money so we agreed on £10.

It is more than a bit weird to be offer someone compensation when they’ve just told you that they’re 100% at fault.

Mchambers

EachPenny wrote: »

The pot isn't designed to attract loyalty, it is intended to attract new customers in the hope they can be sold other products for the bank to make a quick buck.

Loyalty would be served by banks and building societies paying preferential rates to long-term customers.

For example, Nationwide say they value Loyalty, and even offer an account called the Loyalty Saver - though in this case it 'rewards' loyal customers with poor interest rates. Nationwide are also amongst the most generous when it comes to an incentive to new current account customers.

And anyway, it often isn't 'free' money - taking advantage of the NatWest switching offer is currently very hard work for some people

Totally agree.

The_MoneySavingKid

7sefton wrote: »

Do you take a similarly dim view of people who game the system in switching currently accounts constantly to benefit from the free money handed out in switching incentives? I.e taking money from a pot meant to attract loyalty rather than being milked every month by people just after the cash...

Noooo! Not this again, look at his posting history.

TARDIS

I had similar with Halifax when all I wanted was for the correct interest rate to be applied to the account. Not that I turned down the £50 I have to admit.

Greta_Sharbo

Many years ago I had a savings account with Smile. I was closing it down and it turned into a saga where they seemed incapable of closing an account.

During this they told me they had miscalculated some interest (owed me extra) and they would send a cheque rather than putting it in the account which was in the process of being closed.

They told me they would send a cheque for the interest plus some extra for compensation. Told them not to bother with compensation - cheque arrived for interest only - they contacted me to check I received the interest plus compensation.

Told them I received interest only but thats fine because that's what I was due. Reply was that compensation couldn't be paid because the account was being closed so there was no where to put it. Again I advised I didn't need compensation.

A week later a letter arrives telling me they have credited the account with (IIRC) £30 compensation but the account closure had been cancelled because there was a balance on the account.

Essentially in offering me compensation that I didn't want they stopped me from being able to do what I did want!

beefturnmail

Banks are not stupid - they've obviously worked out it's cheaper for them this way - They know the majority of people will not complain if given a token amount of compensation, which is substantially less than the amount it would cost the bank to investigate a complaint. Even if you have not asked for compo, its cheaper for them to pre-emptively give you it, then risk you raising a formal complaint

dunstonh

Most financial services companies weigh up the costs before deciding if to pay a goodwill gesture.

Even on PPI complaints, a number of the banks had an auto-payout floor limit that would vary over time based on workload. One bank was auto-paying out on any PPI complaint where the redress was under £3000 without even investigating the complaint.

There was someone in the mortgage section a few weeks back who was moaning his bank refused to pay him redress for a minor data protection breach. It turned out that they had already paid him a goodwill gesture on another minor breach sometime earlier. I guess this time they were seeing it for what it really was. An attempt to get compo.