Of Bankers and Ghoulies and things that go bump....

Always, we warned the children to keep out of the clutches of the banks. This does not mean do not have a bank account, but rather "for God's sake keep out of debt", for though people are rightly warned about loan sharks and folk who will send round the bully boys to extract debt repayments, the supposedly respectable banks can be just as bad when they get half a chance. Slip into the red when someone is late making you a payment by even one penny more than your overdraft limit and the bank will charge you a special fee for overdrawing too far (even though it was not your doing, and even though you may not even have realised...). A special fee which (you guessed) the bank decides. Then despite knowing you are already overdrawn, unlike any other creditor who must write and tell you, and ask your permission, or ask you to make the deficit good, they help themselves to your money by increasing your overdraft - whereupon they also commence to charge you more interest on the (now) larger deficit !! I don't think banks should be allowed to do such things at all. It seems to me that it is a serious breach of trust if the agent responsible for increasing your overdraft can also be the same agent who decides the level of the penalty, and can help themselves to your money without asking. This of course is how banks help us all by creating money...

Well, OK, put aside visions of bank executives drinking the blood of new-born infants. If you didn't know they were creatures of the night, you should have realised. And now you know why we warn the children to keep out of the clutches of banks. I observe this because one of them took no notice, and a few weeks ago, needing temporary funding to help the unhappy offspring out of debt. I phoned the bank and asked about loans. In the current credit crisis I wasn't sure if they had any money, or at least whether they would admit to having money even after the Chancellor had just given them an huge amount of our money to bail them out. It turned out that they did have the odd copper to spare, and yes, to my surprise, a loan could even still be fixed over the phone. "Shall I put you through to the loan department?" said the girl. Why, Yes. So we proceeded. After what seemed like endless questons, it was apparent that a loan could be made; but that was not the end of the transaction. Despite my protests that I had been with the same bank since I was 19 years old, and they really ought to have all this data on file already, the man on the end of the line had to ask me interminable questions about my condition in life, and it dawned on me that I was no longer talkig to my own bank. Who were they ? I enquired. Turns out they are an agency employed by the bank to deal with special financial offers.... I paced the living room floor impatiently answering questions, while my wife sat listening and greatly amused. At last we were done and the man on the phone explained what would happen next. A letter would arrive. It did. I must check through and sign the form and send it back so they could set up a direct debit. I did that, too. However, I must have skimmed it too quickly for a second letter came telling me I hadn't signed in enough places, so would I try again. Fine. Couldn't recall missing anything, but we all make mistakes. I returned the letter and forgot it all.

Until today, when a new letter informed me that they could not collect the direct debit for the loan because, they say, they have asked my bank or building society (I thought the loan was from my own bank - do they not know their own customers?) and the bank had told them I had cancelled the direct debit. So, I must complete yet another form, and also send a cheque to cover the first missing payment - or they would (sadly, I am sure) have to charge me an extra fee and increase the interest payable. (Lord above! They already want nearly 14 times the Bank of Enlgand's base Rate.)

I tried phoning this agency but after wading through the usual electrical choices, simply got cut off. So, I went in person to my own bank, where the kind woman on the reception checked for me what might be going on. No, I had not cancelled any direct debit - nor had my wife. How could she be so sure? Because the agency had not even set one up. Are you sure ? Yes. Certain. Really ? Yes.

Right. I made an immediate payment for the missing one, and set up a direct debit there and then so there could be no further confusion. Back home, I try this odd agency again. I even got a person on the phone. Explaining what I had done, I discover that my money will still not reach them for a day or two (Why? This is my own bank taking money out of one account and putting it into another. Immediate payment only means that you can make it there and then ! A paper exercise takes days? (What happens to my money in this limbo??) and I also discover that the girl is sure a direct debit must have been cancelled. But I have just been in person and heard them explain and seen for myself... She is unmoved. They, of course, cannot possibly have taken too long getting my (admittedly delayed) forms actioned and then decided to blame me for their problem!! Oh No. Banks and their agents cannot possibly make mistakes.

So, you are telling me that the folk in my branch have lied to me, then? No comment. Just the same words, repeated like an automaton: "There cannot have been a DD letter sent out to you unless a DD had been cancelled....". I ask again and get the same response. Never mind, I say, I will call my bank and ask them why they lied to me. Still no comment. I give up and ring off.I did wonder if I should have said how sorry I was about her job, since the practice of banks using the work of such agencies to farm out their business ought clearly to be one of the first things they have to stop when the banks have to cut back and we get to tell them what they are allowed to do. Six months, I will give them, before public and staff outrage at banks using outside agencies instead of using their own proper staff gets her agency shut down. But that would've been unkind and the poor thing was probably having a bad enough day already.

But what now? If I were a bank, I should be charging them for wasted time, phone calls, travelling, inconvenience, offence, upset.... and I, of course, would be deciding on my own behalf what the level of compensation should be, and I would be online taking the cash out of their coffers without bothering to tell them until I had done it! Hey, this banking lark begins to sound great. Wonder how much a bank would charge for a wasted morning and having someone accuse them falsely of lying ? A morning's pay? Now, let me see, a Retired banker gets a pension of about £650,000 a year, which is about £178 a day; and that would be a modest guide. Halve it. Perhaps I will send them a bill for £98.00.... Sounds reasonable enough to me :-) Oh, and round it up to £100, like a proper bank......