[Closed] Banks win again....

Oh WHAT a SURPRISE they win again , they know we can't exist without them ,they know all our buisness now thanks to chip n pin changeover ,you try and pay cash for goods over £100 now and your looked upon as dodgey thats all thanks to the banks .

We have no PRIVACEY anymore .

They've never screwed me with any of these charges.

Sorry, but I fail to see how saying "If you do A, B, or C, we will charge you X, Y, and Z" is screwing people. They send enough letters with the charges on.
You fail to pay, you get charged.
I've done it in the past. It was my fault. End.

[i]Sorry, but I fail to see how saying "If you do A, B, or C, we will charge you X, Y, and Z" is screwing people. They send enough letters with the charges on.
You fail to pay, you get charged.
I've done it in the past. It was my fault. End. [/i]
+1. Spot on. HTFU and accept that you're lousy managing finances.

Looks like the banks have won against the OFT

I think youve misunderstood, this ruling simply states that "bank customers agreed to pay overdraft charges as part of the price of having a current account". The OFT are trying to challenge the legality of how (and what) the banks charge and can still do so in other ways, this on just isnt it.

you try and pay cash for goods over £100 now and your looked upon as dodgey thats all thanks to the banks

People think your dodgy because few people bother carrying around that much cash as it EASIER to use a card, not because a bank wont give them cash!

they know all our buisness now thanks to chip n pin changeover

Please explain how they now know more than when we used cards and signed for things or wrote cheques with the recipients name on?

The problem is that the lack of competition in the banking sector in this country mean they are effectively operating a cartel. This has allowed them to make the charges up as they go along, knowing the others will charge exactly the same.

Hence £38 for sending you an automated letter

No one is saying that you should not pay a charge they are arguing about how much it costs to send the letter.

As always, the Daily Mash sums it up quite well:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/werewolves-win-to-right-to-tear-your-head-off-200911252257/

seeng as we all now own part of lloyds dont we have a say in this?

its not about the fact the charges were levied its the seemingly random and excessive amounts they charge

Whilst I have fortuantly never been in the situation of having incurred bank charges a couple of things irk me about this. 1st the level of charges are just totally unrealistic and second is the fact that they actually take out the money without any say so from you.

If you underpaid a utility bill, they would have to go to court to recoup the money. Not with the banks though... oh no, they just plunder the account.

I ****in hate them... really really hate them

It could be argued that he charges for having an unauthorised overdraft are disproportionately high because these charges are needed to subsidise free banking for everyone else who either don't go over their OD limit or else don't have any need for an overdraft in the first place.

If that were true how would people feel about it? As someone who manages to make ends meet on a monthly basis I know I wouldn't have a problem.

Supreme court overturns the findings of the High Court and the Court of Appeal... £2.6bn potential loss of income for the banks... All in the same week as the announcement that "Secret" loans were paid from the government to the banks...

Ffs. Be in no doubt about who owns your ass.

The point of it is that people who are overdrawn are often that way because they simply have no money - not because they're going out spending thousands, it's because they're struggling to make ends meet for whatever reason.
These are the people who can least afford such disproportionate fees and charges.

As if the courts were going to pass a ruling that cost the supposedly already struggling banks with 2-3 billion costs. It was never going to happen under these circumstances.

I got an email from my bank, Natwest, this morning before the result was announced and they are reducing their charges. Unpaid item charge will go from £38 to £5.

Usually I am on top of my finances but last month I got charged £76, thats £38 twice, once for the unpaid item, and then again for the re-presenting of the same £6.15 for the milkman. I think the £5 would have been a bit more fair

i incurred charges when i was a student and just after graduating when i had crap jobs, partly coz i never had any money partly because i wasnt particularly careful

the thing that rubs about the charges apart from their silly amounts is that they were debited from my account before i was payed, i asked them to change thius because invariably it would push me od again so i would get charged the next month and so on but despite either placations or outright lies they never did

for people without much money for whatever reason this seems like exploiting the poor for to me

and i love the way they scare you by saying we must keep our gargantuan profits so we will have to charge the thrifty more too

scumbags!

my best charge was 70 quid for going 39p over my limit

Crazy legs do you not think that personal responsibility should mean we all live within our means? Is it not the case that far too many people don't because they give in to the things they want?

When I was at school I was not popular. I did not hang with the I crowd. I worked hard and while I don't have an IQ that breaks the bank I have applied myself and now make a decent living.

The kids that sat at the back of the class throwing scissors at people or bunking off and smoking fags behind the bike sheds are now the ones who 'struggle to make ends meet'. Well my heart ****in bleeds for them.

Sorry but that is the consequence everyone tried to warn them about.

There is one point that you all are missing!!!!

Banking in the UK is FREE!!!

The charges levied are one way for the banks to make money on those wit poor financing.which seems to be most of the country!!!

for our account in Italy, we have to pay to open one, pay to pay money in, pay to withdraw money, pay an annual fee, pay to even close an account.

and god forbid you if you went overdrawn....

One word: Revolution

If we have problems with banks, which we do, and if we are destroying the environment and wasting resources, which we are, and if we are being increasingly treated as children and watched, of which there is no doubt, then we must have the wherewithal to organise, disrupt, and ultimately, revolt.

Last month I was charged £76 for going £2.75 into the red.

What really pissed me off was the fact that they don't even send you a letter any more to inform you of this fact. They just take it. So their entire administrative costs now no longer even cover the cost of postage. Proportional? Yeah... right!

[i]and if we are being increasingly treated as children and watched, of which there is no doubt[/i]
🙄

The problem is that if the ruling had gone against the bank we would have all ended up paying £15 a month just for having a bank account as they would be wanting to recoup their money somehow.

[i]One word: Revolution[/i]
The proles will never rise up against Big Brother!

What really pissed me off was the fact that they don't even send you a letter any more to inform you of this fact.

My bank does, maybe you have opted out of recieveing mail?

The proles will never rise up against Big Brother!

Yep, keep them quiet with cheap booze and give them hope with a national lottery.

I'd rather pay up front for "services" (someone please tell me what they do with the interest on their lending?!) than have them paid for via punitive charges.

Poor cash flow results in an increase in the frequency of charges. The reasons for having poor cash flow generally range beyond just being rubbish at school- if only life was that simple!

[img] [/img]

It could be argued that he charges for having an unauthorised overdraft are disproportionately high because these charges are needed to subsidise free banking for everyone else who either don't go over their OD limit or else don't have any need for an overdraft in the first place

It could be argued that this was an inequitable and inherently unfair arrangement

I've no problem with bank charges [list]that are reasonable[/list]

[i]Crazy legs do you not think that personal responsibility should mean we all live within our means? Is it not the case that far too many people don't because they give in to the things they want?[/i]

I'm thinking about students just out of uni with a mountain of debt to pay back, just starting off in the world of work probably not on a huge salary, while at the same time having to pay bills/rent etc.
People who have been made redundant and who are struggling to pay bills, support a family etc.

Punitive charges (£35 for a bounced cheque!! It costs the bank a fraction of that) are not a help in these situations. I know it's designed to act as a deterrent to ever going overdrawn but there ARE some people out there who don't have a choice in the matter for whatever reason.

This has repurcussions far beyond just the banking system.

To me, this reads as an overturning of the laws relating to penalty clauses (Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited v New Garage and Motor Company Limited) and more or less allows private companies to issue penalty charges for breach of contract.

That's what the bank fees were. Penalty charges. The banks were not claiming for actual losses incurred through the breach of contract i.e. someone exceeding their overdraft limit.

We've had free banking for too long. The banks provide us with a service by running our bank accounts and they have a right to extract money from us for doing so.

However, earning that revenue by charging the poorest people and the ones who make small mistakes is unethical. We should ALL pay for our banking services not just the ones who make errors or who hit hard times.

The caveat should be that those who make errors or hit hard times that mean they borrow too much should pay more but certainly not the amounts they do now, which is effectively the hardest up subsidising the free banking of the rest.

a bank account in Oz costs around AUD$5 a month, but pretty sure we still get whacked with stupidly high penalty charges as well... ending 'free' banking won't necessarily sort this out... banks are bastards and have the world over a barrel, it's a despicable sector of the economy...

We've had free banking for too long. The banks provide us with a service by running our bank accounts and they have a right to extract money from us for doing so.

You do realise the banks make money already by gambling with the money we entrust them with?

so can i claim my old overdraft charges back???

i havent been overdrawn in 2-3 years now but i worked out i spent £1270 on overdraft charges in 5 years.

thanks shaun

Could be worse. I think it's actually illegal to go overdrawn in some other Euro countries!

you can try onoeoneonoe but theyll probably tell you to **** off

id keep sending them letters though just to wind them up

is it not blackmail threatening to charge everyone with 15quid a month if they lost this case?

i mean barclays only made 1.4bn this year

and poor lloyds after buying hbos or whatever are now in debt after making several billion the year before
despite secret loans made by the government,not to mention that Banks earn money on Credit Card Interest, Morgage Interest, Loan Interest, Speculation, Insurance Provision and of course, if this isn't enough, then the tax payer will prop them up.

how will they keep up their bonus culture going? i imagine it will be like the crotchet scene out of christmas carol at the execs house this year

people seem content to let the banks bully them!?

and boardin bobs right its a penalty charge if you get on the bus without enough money they dont take your watch as punishment

I got stung for £60 last month..

I was near my OD limit. A Direct Debit for my TV licence took me £5 over my limit. 24 hours later my wage took me back into my limit.

Now I own up to not being prepared and I even think I should incur some kind of charge. But the £60 was made up of two charges. The first was for the DD taking me over my limit and the bank writing to tell me about it. The second was for using the facilities of an unauthorised OD.

Now.. My problem is I didn;t have enough money in my account to pay my TV licence bill, but the bank still paid it out of my account. Why did they do this when I didn;t have the money? Why did they think it was their right to decide to pay a bill I had no funds for? Why did they not write to tell me that I didn't have sufficient funds in my account to pay a DD and so they didn't pay it and charge me £25 for that? They effectively spent money on my behalf that I didn't have and then charged me again for spending that money I didn't have.

We run a DD system here at Singletrack and if the TV licence people get a bounced DD request the system is set up automatically to retry after a set period of time.. For use we try to recollect after 48 hours. The TV licence system would have tried again the next day and it would have worked. I would have incurred a charge from the bank for the letter telling me I didn't have enough funds to pay a bill that would be fair enough. But no.. They did all of that except THE BANK put me over my limit without asking my permission to do so. They just did it knowing damn well that in so doing they would earn another £35 on top of the £25 for the letter.

Bunch or arse! It's the Abbey btw and I'll be switching banks as soon as I can find one that has a slightly more ethical and less predatory charging structure for people like me who occasionally cock up!

So to be clear to the banks... I'm ok with being charged when I cock up. But not with you deciding to spend MY money in order for you to be able to charge me AGAIN!

But fundamentally we (the people) need to borrow less. I'm slowly coming round to the idea of the £1/day charging structure on ODs. That system is going to make me spend less and claw my way out of my OD facility in the long run and I'm not too proud to admit that I probably do need a bit of 'encouragement' to sort out my personal finances. It's been too easy to use credit for a long time.

I've banked with HSBC for 30 years, recently had letter to inform me they are going to charge me to have overdraft facility that currently is in place but they are going to charge me for it even if I don't use it. That's in addition to charging if/when I go o/d so after all this loyalty I've been on the phone this morning and changed to Co-op. When I told HSBC of my intention last week, the school girl did nothing to find out my gripe and simply (!) told me how to go about changing the account. They weren't bothered.
Draw your own conclusion...

marks right about ebcouraging prudent finances but teh banks dont want this

they want you in your OD and over you OD so they can keep racking up teh charges

which is why the government should step in and regulate them to a decent standard

To me, this reads as an overturning of the laws relating to penalty clauses (Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited v New Garage and Motor Company Limited) and more or less allows private companies to issue penalty charges for breach of contract.

It's not in my habit to read judgements (I consider it to be a professional burden), but I'd be interested to see the extent of discussion on this point.

If it had come at any other time this might have gone the other way.

When I've had these charges it seems silly to me that they'll allow you to borrow the money and then charge you for it. The reason I have a limit on my overdraft or no overdraft is so I can't borrow more than I have, however my bank will allow me to borrow the money and then charge me - I'd rather not have the money. This is unreasonable.

It's not in my habit to read judgements (I consider it to be a professional burden), but I'd be interested to see the extent of discussion on this point.

From the judgement

Andrew Smith J considered at paragraphs 295 to 324 whether the Relevant
Charges were penalties at common law so as to be unenforceable for that reason. He held
that they were not because a penalty at common law is a payment that becomes payable
upon a breach of contract. Liability to pay Relevant Charges is not contingent upon
breaches by the customers of their contracts. It is not a breach of any of the standard form
contracts under consideration to overdraw, or attempt to overdraw, on a current account.
Mr Sumption rightly conceded, however, that the Banks could not convert what were in
effect penalties into “price” simply by wording their contracts so as to ensure that the
contingencies that triggered liability to pay the charges did not constitute breaches of
contract.

Hmmm.

So they're basically saying that going overdrawn is not a breach of contract.

I've seen these charges hit people pretty hard. Yes, people who don't always manage their money well. But if you're paying several hundred pounds a month out of a meagre income to provide banking profits, it's a VERY difficult hole to get out of. Happened to me once, when I was poor an not watching my account. Never again.

Oh, and lol at the guy with the chip on his shoulder. I ****ed around in school something chronic and I've got a reasonable job 🙂