On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:33:45 -0800 (PST) 'Mel Rowing'
wrote this on uk.politics.misc:

On Nov 28, 12:25*am, aracari wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:06:38 -0800 (PST) *'Turk182'
wrote this on uk.politics.misc:



Is it Barclays. *I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. *I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch based
in the West End of London at one stage of my career. *I took him to
lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his hands and
said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day long and they're
furious, some of them are shouting down the phone at me they're saying
'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I can say back to them -
because they're right".

Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we allowing
this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly short changed
and cheated the public to continue?

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where possible
cut them out of the deal?

Turk182

You can't live without them, successive govts have seen to that.


Oh you can and millions do.

It's much easier however, to live with them.

Well, yes...

No person with any reasonable sum of money, or wishes to buy big
ticket goods can easily do without the banks. Try buying a new car
or new home for cash these days. Try doing business.

Further, if you are found to be in possession of large cash sums,
there's more than a 50-50 chance that the police would confiscate
it on the assumption that it was the proceeds of crime. You would
be left with a court case trying to prove otherwise.

--
socialism is like chronic heart disease ...
you may not know you suffer from it, but it'll kill you in the end.

"David Davis For Freedom":
http://www.daviddavisforfreedom.com/
....the battle against totalitarian 'database Britain'
under Gordon Brown's NooLab socialist government.

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:25:44 +0000, aracari
wrote:


On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:06:38 -0800 (PST) 'Turk182'
wrote this on uk.politics.misc:

Is it Barclays. I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch based
in the West End of London at one stage of my career. I took him to
lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his hands and
said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day long and they're
furious, some of them are shouting down the phone at me they're saying
'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I can say back to them -
because they're right".

Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we allowing
this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly short changed
and cheated the public to continue?

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where possible
cut them out of the deal?

Turk182


You can't live without them, successive govts have seen to that.

Repeal the repeal of the truck act and watch them squeal

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:52:20 +0000 'Alang'
wrote this on uk.politics.misc:

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:25:44 +0000, aracari
wrote:


On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:06:38 -0800 (PST) 'Turk182'
wrote this on uk.politics.misc:

Is it Barclays. I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch based
in the West End of London at one stage of my career. I took him to
lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his hands and
said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day long and they're
furious, some of them are shouting down the phone at me they're saying
'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I can say back to them -
because they're right".

Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we allowing
this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly short changed
and cheated the public to continue?

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where possible
cut them out of the deal?

Turk182


You can't live without them, successive govts have seen to that.

Repeal the repeal of the truck act and watch them squeal

Ooh!

--
socialism is like chronic heart disease ...
you may not know you suffer from it, but it'll kill you in the end.

"David Davis For Freedom":
http://www.daviddavisforfreedom.com/
....the battle against totalitarian 'database Britain'
under Gordon Brown's NooLab socialist government.

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:


Best - Nationwide (but not actually a bank)



Seconded. But we, the customers, own Nationwide. Soon we, through the
Government, will own banks - but I am prepared to bet that they will be
no better than they were.



As for the original question - try listening to File on 4 (BBC Radio 4):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7746187.stm

HBoS must be trying hard for the title.

Flop

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
(used to be) Fat Sam wrote:
Turk182 wrote:
Is it Barclays. I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch based
in the West End of London at one stage of my career. I took him to
lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his hands and
said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day long and they're
furious, some of them are shouting down the phone at me they're saying
'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I can say back to them -
because they're right".

Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we allowing
this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly short changed
and cheated the public to continue?

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where possible
cut them out of the deal?

Turk182

I don't know about the most evil, but I can tell you that the best
bank I've ever been with in terms of looking after their customers was
Bank Of Ireland.
I'd still be with them now, but they don't have any branches within
200 miles of where I live now.

Best - Nationwide (but not actually a bank)


I would agree, Nationwide are OK.

TSB get my vote for the worst for a wide variety of reasons.

R D S wrote:
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
(used to be) Fat Sam wrote:
Turk182 wrote:
Is it Barclays. I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch
based in the West End of London at one stage of my career. I took
him to lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his
hands and said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day
long and they're furious, some of them are shouting down the phone
at me they're saying 'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I
can say back to them - because they're right".

Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we
allowing this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly
short changed and cheated the public to continue?

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where
possible cut them out of the deal?

Turk182

I don't know about the most evil, but I can tell you that the best
bank I've ever been with in terms of looking after their customers
was Bank Of Ireland.
I'd still be with them now, but they don't have any branches within
200 miles of where I live now.

Best - Nationwide (but not actually a bank)


I would agree, Nationwide are OK.

TSB get my vote for the worst for a wide variety of reasons.

TSB used to be good...When they were TSB.
As soon as they became a part of Lloyds, they went downhill rapidly.
In Ireland, they merged with AIB to become Forst Trust and I've heard
terrible things about them too.

Another bloody awfull bank in my experience is NatWest.

I'm with Halifax now, and to be honest, I can't fault them at all.

Turk182 wrote:

Is it Barclays. I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch based
in the West End of London at one stage of my career. I took him to
lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his hands and
said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day long and they're
furious, some of them are shouting down the phone at me they're saying
'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I can say back to them -
because they're right".

Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we allowing
this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly short changed
and cheated the public to continue?

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where possible
cut them out of the deal?

Turk182

Beware, one of the major household name banks once pulled a scam on me.
I was unemployed and for a short while and got mortgage support. However,
as an unemployed person you are considered a duff, so the mortgage support
goes directly from benefit office into bank, hence it is difficult to know
if it has actually been paid, only the bank inform you of this. Except the
bank didn't while the money was actually been paid. The bank still deducted
the full mortgage from my account and waited until next month to implement
the mortgage support, ahem... I made queries and found out and wrote to
the bank, they apologised and paid back what they had taken, blaming an
administrative error, ahem...

johannes wrote:

Beware, one of the major household name banks once pulled a scam on me.
I was unemployed and for a short while and got mortgage support. However,
as an unemployed person you are considered a duff, so the mortgage support
goes directly from benefit office into bank, hence it is difficult to know
if it has actually been paid, only the bank inform you of this. Except the
bank didn't while the money was actually been paid. The bank still deducted
the full mortgage from my account and waited until next month to implement
the mortgage support, ahem... I made queries and found out and wrote to
the bank, they apologised and paid back what they had taken, blaming an
administrative error, ahem...

This is the difference between malice and ignorance. And it is difficult
sometimes to distinguish which you are up against.

All institutions make mistakes. The two criteria are how often and how
well do they make restitution.

So, saying a bank/BS is good may mean that either you have been lucky
and they haven't made a mistake yet, or, they have corrected their
errors rapidly.

What is a better indicator is when banks go horribly wrong and refuse to
accept responsibility.

I suppose the answer is to always have an exit/backup strategy. But that
applies to everything.

flop

Turk182 wrote:
Is it Barclays. I have heard so many stories first hand from their
victims, I imagine it would be hard to discover a worse bank. I
developed a friendship with a manager of a major Barclays branch based
in the West End of London at one stage of my career. I took him to
lunch one day - he sat in from of me with his head in his hands and
said "I've got businessman on the phone to me all day long and they're
furious, some of them are shouting down the phone at me they're saying
'you're cheating us' and there's nothing I can say back to them -
because they're right".

I really couldn't say if Barclay's is the worst but your comment set me
wondering if there isn't a tiny bit of folk memory floating in the
background if people do consider it so. Back in the sixties and
seventies Barclay's was considered beyond the Pale by Right Thinking
People (r)(tm)(c) because of its strong link with Rhodesia and South
Africa. Perhaps traces of that attitude remain, to their detriment of
course.


Now that we know the banks are vile greedy crooks, why are we allowing
this current state of affairs where most have repeatedly short changed
and cheated the public to continue?

Not sure why you ever did in the first place but that's another story.

Will we use them once this turmoil is over or do we now where possible
cut them out of the deal?

Personally I'd line the bankers up against the wall to be used as a
public urinal for six months and nationalise the banks. Followed by the
insurance companies.

Flop wrote:

johannes wrote:

Beware, one of the major household name banks once pulled a scam on me.
I was unemployed and for a short while and got mortgage support. However,
as an unemployed person you are considered a duff, so the mortgage support
goes directly from benefit office into bank, hence it is difficult to know
if it has actually been paid, only the bank inform you of this. Except the
bank didn't while the money was actually been paid. The bank still deducted
the full mortgage from my account and waited until next month to implement
the mortgage support, ahem... I made queries and found out and wrote to
the bank, they apologised and paid back what they had taken, blaming an
administrative error, ahem...

This is the difference between malice and ignorance. And it is difficult
sometimes to distinguish which you are up against.

All institutions make mistakes. The two criteria are how often and how
well do they make restitution.

I found it very suspicious indeed. To clarify, mortgage support goes
directly to the mortgage bank and not to the personal account. Presumably
DHSS don't trust an unemployed to handle money...). The only way you know
when it has been implemented is when you see how much mortgage payment
is taken, and that depends on timing when the mortgage support has gone
through. Hence there is an opportunity for the bank to make a buck and
get away with it. Again thinking that an unemployed person is duff...

So, saying a bank/BS is good may mean that either you have been lucky
and they haven't made a mistake yet, or, they have corrected their
errors rapidly.

Of course they have to correct when cought with their fingers in the
till. There is no way of defending the action when found out.