david Posted October 5, 2006 Report Share Posted October 5, 2006 Surely banks have to make money too? They are just a business afterall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fjool Posted October 5, 2006 Report Share Posted October 5, 2006 Yes... poor banks; scratching a living, eking out a meagre existance. All those guys on the breadline. They hardly manage to own any Ferraris and gold watches at all! Poor souls. Give me a break! Banks make an absolute fortune and do so at your expense. The number of ways in which the banking industry fleeces its customers are legion: Never mind the investment in weapons and explotation of third-world debt, sky-high interest rates on borrowing, minimal returns on your investment, exorbitant fees for minimal service. Does it really take 3 days to move electronic money from one system to another? They hold it, invest it, make money on your money simply by their inaction. But they'll still cheerfully charge you a 'late' fee because this 3-days caused your money to miss their arbitrary deadline. And if they make a mistake? The most you can hope for is a refund - where's your recourse to charge them £40 for being late? The thing that pisses me off most about all this? You cannot avoid using a bank! They have one by the testiclae and laugh into their cognacs, smoking the finest cigars while one is bobbing up and down saying 'Yes, sir.. please, sir. Can I have access to my money sometime this week, please? What... oh, the ATM is broken again? Well that's ok, if you'd see your way clear to letting me stand in your lovely queue for 30 minutes, I'd be ever so greatful, sir.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pooks Posted October 5, 2006 Report Share Posted October 5, 2006 Surely banks have to make money too? They are just a business afterall. There is a difference between making money and robbing your customers. I believe that the Royal Bank of Scotland made around £8 BILLION quids profit last year. I also believe that they stopped Airmiles on peoples Royalties accounts...rather than investing the money into the people that helped them make the profit they seem to be taking benefits away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trout Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Surely banks have to make money too? They are just a business afterall. The issue with the banking industry is that it is corporate based. Even the general joe public "retail" sector has moved entirely corporate with those poor buggers working in retail having to meet sales targets etc. Not one of them could give a toss about you or your money - it is demanded of them to fleece you senseless. From working in corporate banking I knew exactly what they were trying to do to me when I was attempting to change my account type. The girl in HBOS said that it was impossible to change my account, and that it would have to be closed and I would have to open another! She even went as far as to get her colleague in Hallifax that she dialed up onto a speakerphone to blatently lie to me too (or they were just too stupid and were trained wrongly - which is an even darker thought!). Overall it literally took a month of phoning and sending two letters to the complaints department at the Mound, Edinburgh - to get them to simply do a five minute job of going into the Core Banking System (CBS) and changing it to display my account as another type!!! Galling .. utterly galling!! If I hadn't known how the system worked I would have been sucked in .. that girl would have got one more notch on her monthly "new accounts opened" and she would have got her tasty bonus .. and I would have lost my account that I had since 5 years old .. and would have been stuck with trying to remember a new account number! Banks are pilticks. Buy gold and diamonds and keep it under your mattress. You'll get a better return on it in ten years time than you will from being fleeced at the bank! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Fjool wrote; Just because I manage to force you to sign an agreement saying that I can burn down your house if you forget my birthday, doesn't mean that my actions are moral or legal! Bit of an extreme analogy there, is it not, Fjool ?Were you forced to sign the agreement with your bank ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trout Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Were you forced to sign the agreement with your bank ? You more or less are. It's very difficult to get a job if you don't have a bank account! ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 3 days to move money between banks, and yes while this may be the case, it happens with every bank so you just have to work around it... I have 3 different accounts (at one time over 2 different banks), several direct debits, an overdraft etc etc and I've never once been charged by the bank as I always keep an eye on how much money I have in each account and when the direct debits are coming off. Why are you still with the RBS Ally if your having that many problems? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomblands Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Any bank charge over £12 is illegal now. I noticed this month that the late payment fine for my credit card has dropped from £40 to £12. There are a couple of sites that provide information on getting any bank charges in the past 5 years refunded. Usually, the bank will offer to pay back a certain amount of charges. The sites do give advice on what to do after that with regards to taking the bank to the small claims court or whatever but, as yet, no bank has gone this far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evian2 Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 I'm with the nationwide. I recently got charged a total of £95 for chques bouncing, a bit silly I know, but can i make claim for these charges? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomblands Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Probably. You can make a claim for any charges in the last 6 years in Scotland. You can ask your bank for a list of charges and you should be able to get them under the freedom of information act. The link posted further up is worth a read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McFly Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 I have 3 different accounts (at one time over 2 different banks), several direct debits, an overdraft etc etc and I've never once been charged by the bank as I always keep an eye on how much money I have in each account and when the direct debits are coming off. Well done you. The rest of us mere mortals have, on occasion, fallen foul of banks charging policies because they are, without doubt, designed to maximise the chances of you doing so. There is absolutely no technical justification for anything other than instantaneous transactions. Computers can talk to each other pretty quickly these days you know.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Njugle Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 There is absolutely no technical justification for anything other than instantaneous transactions. Computers can talk to each other pretty quickly these days you know.......... Ha Haaa! Yeah, that old chestnut. A business i am aware of used to pay it's staff manually, ie by visiting the branch and the wages went through almost instantly, perhaps 36hrs max. The bank persuaded the business that it would be better off using a BACS system of computerised wage handling which they did and the result was that the pay then took 4-5 days to go through instead. Computers eh? Its amazing what they can do....for banks. Having said that - the other two extremes, with my building society any phone-banking or internet transactions happen the same day, usually at midnight. And i recall having an erroneous charge on my Visa card once and being told it would be reimbursed within the month How do these people sleep at night? Ah silly me, they do so on egyptian cotton luxury sheets on Dodo feather mattresses with a collection of eunuchs waving ostrich feather fans over them after a big feed of caviar, etc.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evian2 Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 Just spoke to lloyds TSB, who had written to tell all there customers (how nice of them) that they will now "no longer be informing you of charges on your account, and you will now be charged £10 for every pence you are overdrawn" Was'nt that sweet of them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evian2 Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 I think its fair to say dave, we would all like to be more in tune with our accounts, but as has been seen, at any given moment the bank will fleece you, buy selling you loans, credit cards, overdrafts...oh, because, and I quote "you will be earning lots in the future" There is personal responsibility, but the bottom line is, the banks are only interested in you if you HAVE money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trout Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 The issue with the banks is they are still using 30 odd year old technology behind their core systems with processes designed when people used cheques to pay each other. Where else in the IT world do you still have COBOL developers and mainframe jobs actively sought! These guys are paid a fortune by the way .. and so they should .. not many people can still do them! In defense of the banks .. these archaic systems don't talk well with each other either and to talk between banks your transactions end up in "inter bank clearing" systems that again are working on ancient technology. It's a struggle for banks to know what the hell the department along the corridor from them is doing (no joke) let alone communicating with another bank using altogether different systems. This is really no excuse however ... but can you imagine the headache of trying to upgrade these systems whilst still running a profitable service and without causing a nightmare for your current customers? Upgrading programmes work across years to decades ... not overnight. The real problem is technology is moving at a greater speed as it can be implemented. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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