dave_1

Lloyds were pushed into merging with a dodgy scottish bank, that was their problem, the government were very keen to have them do this. Ofcourse some banks did take govenment money, some also did not. This ofcourse has no bearing on an industry wide practise employed by all banks. Your hatred of lloyds seems to be the motive for your posting in this thread. I believe my statement as to why you cannot compare the delinquncy fees to loan rates holds a great deal of water. I do not feel that your rebuttal is in anyway challenging or contesting my statement. I am sorry you have felt the need to resort to name calling, I geuss we will have to disagree on this, unless you can provide a counter argument. My experiences with the bank that holds my personal current account, Halifax, is that I have never had an administrative error, there are lots of transactions on my account and I have incurred fees in the past but they were applied correctly, in line with the T's and C's. I knew the fees would be applied and they were rare instances. Notably on one occasions I had tried to save money by transferring money by BACS instead of CHAPS, when I knew I had imminent payments due, chancing it as it were. I once had a shortfall of funds due to an issue with the payment of invoices owed to me, I went to the bank and explained, and they told me they could not extend my overdraft limit, so I explained the situation to the manager without gobbing off and spitting fumes, voila, they increased my limit. Had they refused to increase my limit, I would have called all the people who take direct debits from my account and made payment with a credit card. I would also have stopped making payments from the account with my card and cheques. Both of these courses of actions would prevent the fees, ofcourse the latter takes some effort from myself, rather than leaving the bank with the mess to sort out. The fees are applied automatically, by the banks computer system, the amount you go overlimit by is irrelevant. The point is, you should either be aware of how much money you have available or you should be able to accept the fees. The system has to be fair, so whether you have a good record and good salary or not, the fee should be the same. Your earnings or credit record have absolutely no relevance to your ability to construct a rational argument. I think its only fair to tell you that I work for a bank, I guess this will allow you to call me a vested intrest and perhaps give you some more bile to spit... btw. a lot of the time when "errors" are blamed on banks, investigation proves that the bank was not at fault. (this is my personal experience relevant to the area of banking I work in) You will also find that when the banks are at fault, the compensation they offer for their maladministration, is usually atleast in line with the fees they levy for their customers acts of maladministration.

You really have no idea what you are talking about, this is an ill informed and emtionally driven response. I would presume you have both a hatred for banks, and little knowledge of this subject. The opinion you have is driven by mass media and hatred. Sometimes when an account holder attempts to spend money that they do not have in the account, the bank is unable to stop the transaction from being processed. The bank ultimately ends up with the bill, after having given no consent for the transaction to occur. In some instances the bank may process the payment of its own accord, a good example is sometimes they may pay direct debits, despite not knowing whether they will be repaid and this is done in order to prevent the direct debit from being represented repeatededly, causing further fees. This is done to assist the customer. It would also prevent the cusotmer from incurring third party fees. Its funny how people dont complain about fees levied by other organisations, when direct debits cannot be honoured, they are similiar amounts. I guess its just the evil banks that arent allowed to charge a fee for a service. You are attempting to quantify the fees as an annualised return for the bank. This is clearly entirely illogical. The bank is charging a fee for a service and the bank has to make a decision to pay or is unexpectantly left with a bill to pay that the customer doesnt have enough funds to pay. If you do not agree to the fees, then don't open the account, you could always open an account abroad and pay $10 for replacement card and $1 to process a cheque... We are very lucky in respect of the banking products on offer in this country. Your arrogance is striking in that you are stating that the bank wouldnt be there for your money. the banks benefit the whole economy by mitigating risk and providing safe returns (on the most part atleast) and ofcourse loans without them the world would be in the dark age. The main point is that if you try to mug them off, they will try to mitigate the losses you cause them.

Tosh, everyone knows that delinquency leads to fees, when you sign up for the account you agree to be binded by the T's and C's, if you breached a peculiar term or a term specific to one bank, than that would give you a reasonable argument. No-one is being harsh, just pointing out the reality of the situation. I would agree however that there should be caps on fees, your son could work extra hours or another job if his finances are that precarious. Being young is no fun anymore, everyone knows that, he is only a little younger than me, we are the new labour generation. He is going to have to get used to working very hard and being careful with his money

You have totally missed the point here. When you try to make a payment from a bank account, that has insufficient funds, you are either requesting an instant unagreed loan or you are trying to defraud the bank. the banks losses due to these activities are massive and therefore the fees are high when this behaviour is picked up by the bank. It is worth noting that the bank cannot always decline payments requested whether there are sufficient funds or not, it depends on how the merchant or carrier authorised the payments. You should be ashamed of yourself for reneging on the agreement you held with HSBC, it is because of the actions of people like you that the fees are so high anyway and that APRS are so high. You need to realise that banks are just another business and do not act as charities or government entities.

Without penalties for delinquent account management the banks would charge every account holder fees for making card payments, cheque payments, producing statements ect ect. It is also fair to say that the fees should include costs for the pursuing of delinquent gone away accounts, this is why they are so high. Punishing delinquency with heft fees is an essential part of providing free banking to those that are not feckless. Everyone goes through a similiar incident at least once when they are around eighteen. They learn from this ofcourse! The same thing happened to me when I got my first VISA debit card. I didnt realise that small payments were not called to be authorised and it cost me a small fortune. I learnt to be responsible after spending a month unable to go and do anything!

It will be along time before the UTCCR issue is resolved in the courts, how long it will susbequently take to resolve the complaints is anybodys guess but there are thousands upon thousands, due to the bandwagon effect. If you want them to freeze fees and interest on the account, your son will need to call them and propose a repayment schedule and advise he is unable to pay the fees. They should then freeze his account and put him on a payment plan. He will need to speak to the debt recovery department at the bank. He may have to disclose details about his financial cirumstances to get an agreement in place, but he will have to be reasonable with the bank and not give them attitude! It is worth noting that his credit file must be a true and accurate reflection of the way in which he has ran his account.

Well, the bank has done nothing wrong and the fault lies with the account holder. How much notice did he have as far as the change of his pay date? If he was only given short notice he could have asked his employer or a friend for a sub or loan? If the notice was insufficient if he could have told his company that the change in pay date was not acceptable. Why does everyone assume the banks are resonsible for peoples lives ? You can see how many different circumstances could arise and how can a bank mitigate or be involved in that ??

Holy sh1t your a horrible and misguided little man, housing should be affordable, people who have seen the value of their homes go up astronomically in the past decade are not entitled to an easy life without having made any real provisions for retirement. This kind of stupid behaviour is part of the cause of the mess we are in, and ridiculous HPI is the trigger of this mess! Stating that redressing the balance is theft is lunacy, calling it being selfish is absurd, not to mention wantanly ignorant and arrogant. A house should be purchased as a home and people should not expect to get a free life out of it. The scheme to extract non-existant cash from the young and lower classes by way of debt slavery is appaling. You seem to think it is ok to sh1t on your own kids. Why don't people like you go and do something economically valuable you snivelling little sh1t. How you can post in such a context as to try and assert yourself as being on the high horse and at the same time spout that sh1te is beyond me. You should be ashamed of yourself. :angry:

I think the banks probably ring fenced the funds for technology refreshes ect some time ago, you may well be offering them an improvement on the previous setup which would save them money on their operations, if anyone can fiddle balance sheets ect (other than new labour) its gotta be the banks. Its also worth noting that the banks are surely raking it in atm, and know they will not be allowed to fail, whatever software they are buying will probably improve their operations and make them more profitable. The banks are recession proof, even this recession, or rather especially this recession!

You clearly have aboslutely no idea....! I have read through your posts and you are clearly one of these types who have no consideration for other people, and very little intellect. When limited companies buy up houses to provide to the public to rent, then there is no issue. when every idiot in the country has access to credit and subsequently decide they want to be landlords and all compete with each other for houses, house prices go through the roof, this means that people are not afforded the option of purchasing houses, which in this country is practically considered a human right. Property over speculation caused overinflated house prices and diverted money and attention from the real economy making the whole thing ever more unsustainable. Money lent against houses with no equity has no benefits to the real economy and it all became a little victorian, a few people with a house already, taking out rakes of loans to buy properties, forcing house prices up stopping young people from being able to purchase houses. Business people that start companies and create wealth, no-one has a problem with, because they are generating wealth, however BTL types who over indebt themselves raising barriers to housing for young people are rightly seen as money grabbing tw@ts. More needs to be done to penalise BTL types, as they , on the most part, caused this whole mess. They are the most revolting type of new labour scum.

to be fair, he obviously managed to get a very good price for it, I think he does deserve a bonus for that.

This makes sense to me, do we have any idea of how long the high interest rates may last when they have to hike the base rate? When is the next general election, perhaps when the tories get in and take steps to fix the problems rather than excaerbate them, we may see the un-popular steps taken. I ask on the assumption that the elections will be delayed by as long as gordo can?

To be fair, they aren't wrong, they are definately one of the safest banks in the world to trust with your money. Its not fair to compare them with NuLabour.

ofc your right. I am sick of not having my own house tho, its the whole emotional thing that comes with houses. I might rent a nice house for a while, currently i live in a shared flat, my total housing costs equate to about one days pay for me, I just feel like I have slummed it for long enough.

In my experience, degrees are for the lazy and ignorant, on the most part, I only know two people from my childhood that did worthwhile degrees and now have fulfilling and valued jobs, to be fair, these two people are the most intelligent people I know, but they are lacking in some respects, being university types I don't think they understand the concept of overtime or working smarter than your contemporaries. You must remember, that most people that got to university are wasters, this is diffirent to being a criminal. Ofc most of the smartest people go to university too. They should make university more difficult and remove the numpty courses. Electing not to go to university is not closing your mind from learing, learning by doing is always better, the steeper the learning curve the better the end retention of knowledge, not to mention that, going to university often has a negative effect on important skills, compared going out there and trying to achieve something. Ofc again, some jobs require a lot of class room learning before someone can be unleashed on that profession so to speak. Incidentally of all my childhood friends the ones who have achieved the most purely in a financial sense and a career sense, are two of us GSCE educated criminal types.

There you have what? your opinion, thats all. Gordon Brown is extremely dangerous and reckless, he is no misguided hero. Thatcher was a much better leader, people that do not create wealth, as they work in a non profit making subsidised industry, should not make ridiculous wage demands, these trade unions cost them their jobs. the greed of the socialist labour morons expecting an easy living, hang on, deja vu ?

It means people who are not necessarily high earners or highly educated, but are hard working and want to improve the quality of their life, also people who aren't chavs and raise their kids properly I'd say. People with pride and morals..!

What area and what type of home have you seen at those levels ?

Thanks for your help all, seems that I need to wait till I see 50% off.

Hi, There is a housing development in Milton Keynes that was completed some time ago, they still have stock to sell and a lot of the homes that did sell are now up for sale on right move. I had a look in a house that was priced at £250k at peak, they were going at around £230k at the time and these were overpriced imho even at peak prices. They are three floor terraces with 3 beds and study, garage and small gardens. I know that the south east and east midlands areas are probably some of the hardest hit so far and obivously with more to come. Adjusting the SRP as it where to £230k at peak and taking of 20% ish gives £190k, there is one up for sale at this price from a private seller, although its not the best example. There was a recent auction for a similiar but slightly smaller property, again three floor terrace that went for £142k, not long ago. Not as nice an area however. I am curious as to what the opinion is as to how much the house would actually be worth buying for and would like some advice, as you guys really are the people in the know... I am thinking it would be worth jumping in for around £160k, any thoughts? Thanks for your help!

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I would take the variable for the time being, there not going to hike up boe rates now, they have made their play for the time being. Surely it would be safe to assume rates will stay low for h1 09 ?

to the bankruptcy courts, that would get things moving, base rate up I say. The government could sponser loans to the bankrupts, loan them there negative equity over the rest of their life, the government could be like a consolidation lender of last resort. If they default, they could be put into gulags, that would allow us to compete in the cheap manufacturing industries, we could undercut china on the back of slave labour.

How about offer to loan to sound private businesses at subsidised rates, on the proviso that they are real businesses that are not involved property ponzi scams, wealth generating businesses. Perhaps simply to allow them improved credit terms as to what they have currently, in order to protect jobs. The best thing for private mortgages and the property market would be long term fixes at sensible rates, like 6%. Then we could put interest rates up a percent. Ofcourse any action at all forced by the governments on the part-nationalised banks is anti-competition and corrupt, not to mention distorting the real world for privately owned banks

As far as a good indicator of when to buy, I think that is very sound. The lag between confidence returning and stability in the market and mortgages being offered to suit the new outlook should not be too great, given that the market should stay around the bottom for some time once it has bottomed out. Ofcourse fingers crossed a mortgage might not be required for most of us doom mongers by then!