turn the tables on them
I fucking hate banks for most of the various reasons mentioned by the hundreds of people posting before me.

I take great pleasure in getting back at them every chance I get.

My mortgage provider fucked up the funds transfer on the purchase of my last house and my lawyer fucked up as well. All in all it was an interesting few days with costs being incurred left right and centre (penalties on late completion, hotel rooms, additional removal csts, you name it). As my lawyer had fucked up I had a long and interesting talk with them which led to all costs being covered by them. Then I remembered the bank. A quick call to them saw the ball rolling on a claim for all of the aforementioned expenses. They never asked if anyone else was
covering them, and I never told them. I was in fact very proud of the fact that I just called them and told them I was out of pocket and then just waited on them suggesting compensation as well as covering the costs. Paid for my stamp duty.


On another occasion my wife and I both opened accounts with another bank in trust for our son. We got a whacking great 7% rate if we agreed to conduct all business on the accounts by phone and internet. I felt that not having to deal with the branck monkeys was just an added bonus. Anyhoo, a few months down the line it turns out it is a phone banking only account. No internet. I gave some careful thought to how I could make my bank pay for lieing to me. Then I had it. A call to the manager explaining that my wife and I had both bought smart phones specifically for the purpose of keeping track of the finances in these accounts only attracted a rather bored sigh and a few murmurred apologies. I then used the phrase “I feel I was mis-sold this financial product”. The next few minutes saw me negotiate a one off “good will payment” of £100. As far as I know mis selling in its true financial sense does not even apply to accounts but never mind.

I spent a wonderful time batting my account back and forth between RBS and HBOS which saw me clock up a total of £350 over the course of 8 months in joining and switching incentives. My favourite was the lowest one of £50 as the terms of the deal saw me give HBOS my RBS account details and walk out with £50 cash in my grubby wee hands. That rocked. I would love to say I spent it on booze and good times but it went on nappies.

My first ever bank complaint was back in the december just before the switch to the euro when the local co-op ATM ate my card on December 23rd (local kids shoving 5p pieces in the card slot). Now, the ATM was part of a co-op shop and the manager of the shop had informed co-op bank (a different organisation entirely) that he thing was eating cards a good 5 hours before I showed up. When I found this out I went straight on the phone and explained that I felt it should have been disabled to prevent further losses. “Oh we are verrrrry sorry Mr OTT but why do you demand compensation in relation to a event which saw you lose a piece of plastic given to you for free by your bank”

I had a flash of inspiration. “Well, for starters I have over £5000 of jewellery put aside at Laings in Glasgow for family Christmas presents. If I do not have means of payment then Santa wont be coming this year (False, I was 19 and poor as they come). “ahh well.....” “Sorry I wasn't finished, I am also headed to Europe for new year and was counting on electronic means of payment to see me through the currency switch (true) and do not have any other cards suitable for use (false).

A long and protracted discussion with a few follow up calls and the odd letter saw me receive a £200 cheque to ward of the January blues.

I had £80 of charges wiped from when I was in Holland (see above) and was drawing 25 guilders at a time (about £8) from the cash machine every time I needed cash, blissfully unaware of the charge for foreign currency withdrawals.

My home insurance provider tried to fuck me over after I got flooded no less than 8 times by the fuck stick that lived upstairs. Separate claims for this and that with £100 excess PER CLAIM the bastards. Well, not exactly my doing but one of the things to get the full h2o treatment by my retarded neighbour

(“its ok mate, my pal's a plummer and will be over after the rangers game.” “Five minutes then, cool.” “No mate he is at the game in Aberdeen, he says he can get here in about 3 hours”)

Anyhoo, I digress. One of the many things to die a water induced death was my pride and joy american style fridge freezer. It was one of the bargain basement ones that comet and currys were selling for £499 ages ago. This company (I believe a guy called Howard works for them) said that the would repair it instead of replace it. The engineer came out and promptly advised that water had gotten into the main circuit board and technically speaking, it was fucked. So the stupid bastards had to replace it anyway. Only thing was the engineer put down the wrong model number (I think he got the first letter and one number wrong). The result was that they paid out on a top of the range fridge freezer which came with a FUCKING TELEVISION IN THE DOOR. Luckily they paid out on it instead of replacing it. The old fridge freezer took up about 20% of the floor space in our tiny galley kitchen.


In another story I reclaimed £800 in charges on my Dad's account (thanks dchurch). Nothing special here you may think but I did it without writing a single letter. A guy I was working with used to be a trainer at LLLLLLLLOYDS and gave me a direct dial number for the dept dealing with this. I then managed to bully my way through the ignorant dross to a manager who explained that I had no ref no so had to submit my initial letter requesting the case be looked at. Oh, and include the cheque for the subject access request. I then explained that I was not looking to make a subject access request for 6 years worth of statements. Instead I wanted someone to spend 5 seconds running a query for charges only. I did not want to kill a forest and I did not want to know how much my dad spent on shopping in 2003. Again, polite but very firm gets you very far and I got the details through. Martin Lewis's lovely interest calculator saw me come up with the above figure which was deposited into dads account within 10 working days. He gave me half.

I fucking hate banks. And not just a tabloid induced credit crunch knee jerk hatred either. (I fucking hate the term credit crunch, I even saw a news segment where they did a vox pop thing and had no less than 2 people talking about the credit card crunch, just fucking shoot them) A common sentiment on here so it seems.

My advice is always be on the lookout for an angle which will allow you to make a small but nonetheless worthwhile assault on your bank.

I remember a while ago in the newsletter one of the “it would be cool if someone could do this for us” things was a script which allowed for internet banking payments to be made 1p at a time. That would be heroic.
(OTT, Thu 23 Jul 2009, 8:58, 1 reply)

Great post, mate
Nice to read about people getting one up on these bastards... If I had half a brain I might try some of the things detailed in your post myself, but to be honest I'd rather have contact with a red hot poker than my bank, if I could help it.

*click*
( SpankyHanky, Thu 23 Jul 2009, 10:10, closed)