Mortgage Product Fees

dunstonh

alliepallie wrote: »

Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.

I suggest you follow that as you are the only one here that hasn't been considerate of other posters.

worcester1

Try and use the consumer forum website in future http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/

Guys on that forum never try make you feel !!!!!! or put you down like some of the guys on this forum. What you have here is a few hardcore posters who although are experts in their fields are not very nice guys.

They seem to think that they are better than the rest of us for they are the mortgage or financial experts of this forum.

The correct and simple advice as oppose to the "car example" would have been;

"No - at this present time, no one can claim any product/arrangement fees paid"

Now how hard was that?

Noz

Complete rubbish

jem16

worcester1 wrote: »

Try and use the consumer forum website in future http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/

Guys on that forum never try make you feel !!!!!! or put you down like some of the guys on this forum. What you have here is a few hardcore posters who although are experts in their fields are not very nice guys.

The last time I used that forum I got very little in the way of help. In a lot of cases people ended up talking to themselves on a thread - like this one for example;
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/payment-protection-insurance-ppi/76872-im-sure-my-wife.html#post672220

and this one;
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/payment-protection-insurance-ppi/133132-have-i-been-misold.html

Often people got no answer at all.

At least on this forum people get answers to their questions, even in cases like this when the same question has been posted over and over again. On the pension board people keep asking if they can get a refund of their contributions and don't like it when they are told "Not as this present time". They often ask exactly the same question again a day or so later to see if they can get different replies.

MarkyMarkD

worcester1 wrote: »

The correct and simple advice as oppose to the "car example" would have been;

"No - at this present time, no one can claim any product/arrangement fees paid"

No, that wouldn't have been correct or simple advice.

Unnecessarily inserting at this present time instills false hope that at some future point, it may be possible to claim such fees. And the whole answer doesn't explain why the fees are not reclaimable nor indeed why they should never be claimable.

Over-simplistic answers don't help people.

Addiscomber

I am afraid that Martin's campaign over bank charges has led people to believe that financial institutions should not apply charges of any sort.

MarkyMarkD

It's not just Martin, though, it's Which?, CAG, and all the other websites.

Banking is a service like any other and there's no earthly reason why banks shouldn't make charges for any service they choose to charge for.

When "free banking" was introduced, interest rates were way higher than they are now. Banks genuinely did earn a huge amount from the balances in customer accounts, and they were generally paying customers no interest on those funds.

We are now in a different world. Interest rates are far lower, and most current accounts DO pay interest to the customer. So the amount of income generated from customer balances has dropped enormously.

It's not surprising that banks have had to introduce or increase charges left right and centre, in order to cover their costs and generate a reasonable return for their shareholders.

I don't personally believe that the whole reclaiming debate will get us anywhere. There will be windfalls for some who have paid a lot. But in future everyone will pay more rather than particular people paying more.

Other campaigns have the same adverse effect.

When only a few people had a clue about their mortgages, most people stayed with their original lender paying SVR and the lenders made some money; they used this money to offer loss-making products which benefitted those who were astute enough to switch. Now, almost everyone switches mortgages all the time, and the relative value of the mortgages on offer has declined markedly. Again, we have lost the cross-subsidisation from the less well informed to the more well informed.

Ironically, by making everyone better informed, sites like MSE (and newspapers' campaigns, and many other things) make everyone who was already well informed worse off.

worcester1

A simple and straight forward answer gives exactly the same answer but not just as patronising and sarcasm.

In this case the OP will get the message that - he/she cannot at this present time claim back these fees. Whether the OP goes on to live in hope that one day he/she may be able to do so, then that's his/her own prerogative

The very few hardcore posters on this forum I mentioned in my previous post are the darlings of the banks and other financial institutions. One can not blame them because they need these organisations much more than the rest of us do.

Their commissions/salaries/profits are funded mainly by the banking/financial industry or as a direct result of them staying in business and making billions of profit. This is their industry!

I bet few years back if you were to post on this forum about reclaiming illegal bank charges/PPI/mortgage exist fee etc you would have been ridiculed just as much as the OP who asked a simply question about reclaiming product/arrangement fees.

If Martin or any one of those consumer rights lobbyist/activists had the same attitude as the majority of financial/mortgage advisers on this board then we will still be sitting tight on our !!!!!s getting $crewed by the banks.

The only difference between us the consumer and these bank-loving guys on this forum is that - whilst we are looking out for number one (the consumer) these guys are on this forum are only protecting their interest. Is this a conspiracy on their part or are they simply looking out for their own interest?

dwsjarcmcd

worcester1 - The plain and simple facts are that the OP and anyone else for that matter has a choice of fixed rates that have

1. Lower interest rates/higher fee
2. Medium interest rates/medium fee
3. Higher interest rates/no (or low) fee

There are plenty available from every lender, the OP chose one with what she perceives as a higher fee. So she paid a lower rate of interest.

Now she wants her money back but she can't have it because it was used to her benefit to secure her a lower rate.

If everyone wants to remove or reduce application fees, that's fine but it will be paid for by higher interest rates.

jem16

worcester1 wrote: »

If Martin or any one of those consumer rights lobbyist/activists had the same attitude as the majority of financial/mortgage advisers on this board then we will still be sitting tight on our !!!!!s getting $crewed by the banks.

Simple way to avoid charges is not to break the terms and conditions to whcih you agreed.

The only difference between us the consumer and these bank-loving guys on this forum is that - whilst we are looking out for number one (the consumer) these guys are on this forum are only protecting their interest. Is this a conspiracy on their part or are they simply looking out for their own interest?

I want to look after myself too and I'm not a bank-loving guy. Neither am I in the finacial services in any way.

I'm simply an ordinary consumer who will probably lose my free banking when the banks decide to bring back the monthly current account charges as a result of this campaign. Then everybody will lose out.