Be Excellent To Each Other

Bugger. Like them or not, these charges paid for us to bank for free.

So now we're all going to end up paying £10 a month to bank because a few idiots can't manage their own finances.

I already pay £15 a month to bank with Lloyds TSB, so it doesn't affect me. Also, I claimed back over £2k of charges back in 2006, so if anyone wants some help with this, PM me!

What Dudley said.

Yes, some people ended up getting charged because of crossed DDs or whatever, but in the main these charges are due to people not knowing how much cash is in the bank and going overdrawn.

What I do object to, though, is that if someone goes as little as 1p overdrawn, the bank deducts an automatic £30 fee from your account. This of course puts you further overdrawn... and to someone on benefits, say, that is a lot of money. A mate of mine ended up several hundred quid in debt to the bank because he went overdrawn by pennies, and they they did this and added a new charge every month. As he was on benefits he had no way of paying it back.

They should, instead of deducting the fee directly, invoice the customer for it, same as any other debt. Or just refuse any transaction that would take them overdrawn. If I ask for an account with no overdraft, I would expect to not be able to go overdrawn.

But the banks consider the overdraft fees as a revenue, so are now saying without them, they will have to generate more revenue another way, ie charging customers a monthly cost for using a bank account. It's because of people going overdrawn and paying fees that has thus far stopped us all having to pay monthly account use fees till now.

Biscuit tin under yer bed FTW.

This. The best part, of course, was that the quarterly direct debit that put my account into the negative (I'd simply forgotten it was due) was a donation to charity. Wankers.

Thing is, banks might star trying to charge for us to bank with them, but it'll only take one upstart to not do this, and everyone will flock to them.

Um.. yes, that's exactly what I said...?

Nevermind. I read "idiots" as you meaning the customers.

I thought that, but after re-reading, he does seem to have a point.

We only enjoyed free banking because of the idiots in the first place. If they stop being idiots, or get the rules slightly relaxed , we suffer... but we only benefitted in the first place because there were idiots. Were there no idiots at all, we would have been paying all along.

Or something.

They've been claiming all along that the fees are a fair and reasonable charge required to deal with people breaking their arranged limits, and not penalties.

If they now turn round and say they have to charge everyone to bank because the revenue stream from not-penalising-oh-no arrangement breakers is cut off (well, reduced to an actual fair and reasonable fee for handling a broken arrangement, which we all know is actually pennies), then one of the two statements/positions it a flat out lie.

Also (to reply to RichardGaywood's original post), the result doesn't change anything at the moment, it means the OFT can, if it likes, tell the banks not to charge people so much. Nothing is going to change before the end of May, maybe even longer if the banks appeal.

Perhaps it would help if I modify my statement to "because a few idiots won't take responsibility for managing their own finances"

Eh, I think it's quite proper that people get charged for having their mistakes dealt with; it is excessive though, especially the way it can stack up just because you're having a bad couple of months (although yes, I know they normallly refund if it's a very infrequent thing).

I also think the banks can get fucked with this bullshit about having to start charging for banking because the "revenue", that they say it definitely isn't, is reduced.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/busi ... 080424901/

You CANNOT beat the daily mash, hahahaha

You can say that all you like, but it'll happen.

Absolutely. Cheeky as hell, as they make scads of cash from having your cash to play with in the money markets, but there we are.

We'll be paying the price for the idiots.

Or, recently, lose scads of our cash investing in the mortgages of low income Americans whilst convincing themselves that these are somehow AAA-rated super bonds, and then borrowing more of our money from the government to stop themselves going bust.

Quite. However, they're all still rich beyond even Grim...'s wildest dreams, though.

Umm, ok, I haven't elaborated on my situation in this thread, but the constant 'idiots' comments are starting to get on my nerves a bit.

I agree with most of what's been said, but in my case I was quite young when I first got myself into debt. It started when a credit card from my bank landed on my doormat on the morning of my 18th birthday. At the time I didn't really know that much about credit cards and I hadn't really learnt the value of money properly. I was at college full-time and worked 13 hours a week in my local Alldays store for pocket money (£2.39 an hour!).

Of course, I shoulder responsibility for my stupidity, but how irresponsible is it for banks to send credit cards to 18 year olds who couldn't possibly earn enough to pay the bills back?

My charges started racking up and the bank kept increasing my overdraft for me until one day I was in the bank and was shuffled into one of the offices at the bank and told they could sort out my problems by consolidating my debts. I didn't know what 'consolidation' meant at the time, and they didn't mention the word 'loan' to me, just put a pen in front of me and asked me to sign.

Any problems I had since that were my own fault, but it was hardly the best way to start my life as an adult, was it? Because I've had my charges refunded for that period of my life, I feel like I've been given a second chance and an opportunity to not feel wracked with guilt for spending money, ignoring all phone calls due to thinking it would be the bank, etc.

The fact that the banks have now been forced to admit that these charges were for revenue (when all along they had been claiming they were 'administration fees') doesn't make me feel bad about getting them back.

Their ability to repay would of course depend on how much they spend on the card, though. You'd have to be a fairly abnormally silly person at any age to think "Oooh, it's got a £1000 limit, I can spend all of that and I won't have to pay it back, ever!".

Credit cards can be a useful tool if you spend within your means. In fact for some things (like ordering stuff from the US) you need to have one (if you're not using Paypal now, of course).



That is really not very good at all. Have you ever complained about them doing that? IT sounds like they must have broken some banking codes there, if not laws.



And nor should you - they were unlawful penalty charges. I'm glad it's all worked out for you, and I'm sorry you had a rough start, financially speaking - the bank does sound like they acted considerably less than honestly once you got into trouble.

However, as much as I sympathise, it really is down to an individual's responsibility as to whether they get horribly in debt in the first place. Not knowing how a credit card works ... well, your 18 year old self was a teensy bit silly for using something he didn't understand. By way of example, I'm a big cautious 'fraidy cat who wouldn't stick money into a savings account without first asking a million questions, including, for instance, "is my capital guaranteed to be returned no matter what the performance of the fund". Those who do jump into financial arrangements they don't understand without asking questions about them are, well, very silly indeed. It's not the banks' fault that those financial arrangments can be misused, and it's not their job to tell people how much cash to spend. They just tell you how it works and what your obligations are. It's up to you to decide if you can be trusted to do that.

But that's a whole other kettle of fish to people thinking "I have £5 in the bank, I'll stick £50 on my Switch card" and then complaining when the bank charges them for going overdrawn.

Or the OFT, which seems to still be on our side, could tell them to get fucked, now they have even more power than ever.

I know, I know.

I don't disagree with anything you've said, Chris; I wish I was more like you fiscally, but I'm not unfortunately. I know I was an idiot and silly to spend the money I did - I'm not denying that. I just wanted to stick up my hand and say "Hi! I'm one of those idiots you're talking about, BUT I might have a case for the defence here..."

I don't think I could prove the bank acted outside of their code of conduct as I have no real proof - just my word against theirs. I've got my charges back now, so I feel like that's recompense enough.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE WORSE THAN HITLER.

Point taken, though, Myp.

Sweeping generalisations are easier and more funny though.

Everyone who make sweeping generalisations are cunts.

The problem is that in some cases the charges are unfair and excessive, but in others they are entirely fair and clear; you go overdrawn, you get charged £30. A direct debit fails, you get charged £20.

Personally, I think it should be a maximum of one of each individual type of charge per week. Enough to make you consider actually paying attention to your finances, but not excessive amounts to really fuck you over.

Unfortunately it seems that the vast majority of people who get charges could avoid them; they withdraw money willy-nilly, spend all the time but never actually look at statements to see if their bills have been paid and whether they really do have the money they think they have.

Yes, I can't say they're unfair because they're not compulsory and they're clearly published.

If you go into WH Smith you won't get very far getting Retro Gamer for £3 because you think £5 is unfair after all. You've made a choice to take up a service at an advertised price.



Barclays limit it to 1 per day to a maximum of 3 per month. Can't tell you about anyone else.

Yep, even Lloyds TSB's are quite reasonable now. They were forced to change them a couple of years back.

I'm hideously irresponsible with money, but have thus far managed to avoid any bank charges.

Alas, I didn't manage to avoid the 20k of debt I accidentally racked up on stuff (and not even particularly tangible stuff).

Oops.

I agree to a point, problem is the charges compound themselves. If I go overdrawn and the pentalty is £30, fair enough. But at that point the bank should just invoice me for £30 like every other company would. But they don't. They take it right out of your account, without asking, and since they're fining you as you went overdrawn in the first place, it's money that isn't there.
I don't see why banks are so special, why they can take payment for something right from my bank account without getting permission. I think that should have been the real issue with this whole bank charges thing. That just because they run the account, doesn't mean they should get free access to it.

This. You'll notice if you have a Credit Card and a Current Account with the same bank, and the Credit Card payment is due, instead of taking the money out of the Current Account (which is all sitting there nicely) to make the payment the bank will sit on their hands and issue a late payment fee.

They only dip in to your account when it suits them, and when they'd be better off not doing it, they claim they can't without you setting up a Direct Debit.

This is because it's not down to the bank to manage your funds for you. That's your job.

Most banks have a right-of-set-off procedure, in which they can take money from your associated accounts to pay off debts on other accounts you hold with them. But this requires human interaction. They have to check if you've already made an arrangement to make a payment (full or part), they should be checking if taking their arrears will cause you to miss something essential (a mortgage payment, for example.)

The charge is paid up-front because you agreed to that condition when you opened the account.

As someone said, they don't have free access because they run it, they have free access because you gave them free access.

That's university for ya

Anyone with a business account still won't be able to reclaim their charges.

Well yes, but you have no choice to do so if you want a bank account. Doesn't mean it's right.