Penny jar
I have a pint glass filled with pennies and 2p's, I empty when its full (~every 2 years or so) and usually get about £6 or so. Its almost full now actually :)
( theniwokeup has been awake since, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 16:14, 8 replies)

I thought
This would fit perfectly here:

www.dormdorkscomic.com/2008/09/12/whaddya-want-for-nothin/

I don't know if it's good or bad that I enjoy them so much...
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 28 Oct 2008, 16:01, Reply)

Can you peel an orange in your pocket?
A guy I work with, is the very essence of tight!

Recently, I caught up with him in a pub where a comedy night was planned. As part of the evening we were given vouchers for free beers. I arrive at the same time and buy him a pint. We wait until the show starts and in the interval, he asks if anyone wants a drink. I say yes, and he asks me for one of my free beer tokens!

On nights out with the lads, when he's the first one to enter a pub, he'll hold the door for everyone else to walk through, so he gets to the back while some other mug then ends up getting the beers in.

He's tighter than a gnats chuff!
(pard, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 16:00, Reply)

Thrifty vs. mean
Being half-Yorkshire, half-Scots, I've heard all the jokes about being mean, tightarsed, short arms long pockets etc. And it's true that lots of things my parents did would be described as 'mean' by Southerners - rinsing out the shampoo bottle to get the final dregs; not putting the kitchen light on; recycling old clothes as wash clouts & dusters etc.

But these are all thrift - not a familiar word to other English, and not the same thing as mean. Thrift is making the most of what you've already bought; mean is deliberately holding back something you can afford.

So the meanest person I know owns two £500,000+ houses outright; yet gives Christmas presents that were clearly bought for her last year and re-wrapped.

Like a box of ladies lace hankies, offered as a present to a 17 year old lad. Lovely.
(simon shitting mason, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 15:58, 2 replies)

Chuggers
It might appear to be tightwaddery to have a go at these people, but it's not. They are exploiting a legal loophole (you can't solicit money without a licence but you can solicit direct debits) in order to make a fortune. At least the first year of donations, and often the first two, goes to the chugging company, and since people often cancel the direct debits after a year or two the charity only sees a fraction of the donation.

So here's what you do. When you see the chugger ensnaring a victim, just walk up and ask the victim, politely "Has s/he told you what commission s/he gets for this yet?" Watch the chugging bastard squirm.

Oh, and try taking their photographs. Many of the ones in Edinburgh at least are fiddling the dole and get extremely upset if you point a camera phone at them.
(ubergeekian, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 15:55, 4 replies)

The general public seem to be tightwads.
I work in a restaurant here in Belgium. I'm not exactly sure what it's like in the UK, but you aren't really expected to tip any amount of money here, but most people do it anyway.

Before I worked here I always tipped in a restaurant, but only a small amount, say 2 pounds or something (for myself). Friends would also chip in with about the same amount, so in the end it was a pretty decent tip. I always felt like a cheap tipper but by god, was I wrong. Last week our restaurant was fully booked, and we had a few large groups in there (say 20 people). In the end I had to deal with about three bills of around 850 pounds each, so quite a large amount of money. We received 20p in tips that night.

Seriously... Like I said, tipping isn't mandatory, but 20p?! I would have understood it if the service was completely horrible, but I can assure you that it definitely wasn't. Somehow I just found it extremely rude...
(St. Dymphna, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 15:33, 21 replies)

Tightarse companies and Nazi account ladies.
Adding to pounana's and Scooby Don't's company's antics – together with my own post earlier today.

Also being on the receiving end of the ball busting accounts ladies – up holding the tightarse company policy and saving all the travel budgets for the bosses first class ticket.

I remember having a particularly tough Biz-trip tour. Finland, Norway and Denmark in 5 days installation of said Networking kit and tested. I picked out some Water from the mini-bar in my room as I had just got off the train in turn from the airport – arrived straight from Oslo, Norway. Thought nothing of it. When I got back and claimed my expenses I had query about the water. Basically I hit the roof about this and claimed a basic human need for water. But, they were not moving on this and it should be part of the Diem they told me.
However, they did fail to notice the hard core Scando porn on all my hotel bills. The hotels were kind enough to list this as “Business connection package” or “internet” – which was always extra.

After that moment turb0t’s and my business trips always tried to include “Internet” on our hotel bills whether it was included or not. And getting hotel to list everything in the local language of the said county was a bonus too. This made the lazy accounts lady fuct off – which was a secondary bonus.
(tech_junky, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 15:32, Reply)

I felt like a tightwad.
She came up to me as I walked along the high street one rainy Sunday afternoon.

"Excuse me soul. Me and mah baby here " (waves hand vaugely in direction of pram) " we're homeless, could you please spare us some change?"

Now I would normally have given her something, but I didn't have any cash on me, and I also noticed that she was quite well dressed. She wore a large black jumper, clean blue jeans, and looked plain but quite healthy. She certainly didn't look like a beggar.

"I'm sorry love, I've no money on me. But I've got a cigarette if you want?"
"Nooh, ah don't smooke. Ah well, ne'er mind. God bless ye' soul."

I've never met a beggar that doesn't smoke before.

So, odd Scottish lady, I hope you managed to find somewhere to stay.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 15:06, 1 reply)

Halloween
Timely, so probably bindun, but who else makes absolutely sure on 31st October that they are either a) out or b) hiding upstairs with all the lights turned off? All evening?

I wouldn't mind so much if it was all cute little kiddywinks all dressed up, but when it's gangs of hooded 13-year-olds ambling around the neighbourhood going "trickurtree"... fuck off.

My ex gave some of the latter variety a handful of fags once. They were well pleased.
(Binary Solo loves a bit of algebra, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:30, 28 replies)

My sister and I...
...got a Saturday job mucking out at a local stable.

We worked from 8am to four in the afternoon, up to our knees in shit and straw, all in the company of evil-looking horses and their equally evil-looking owners.

At the end of the day, we knocked on the door of the owner's luxuriously-appointed house for our day's wages.

"Ah yes," she said, looking down her nose at us as if we'd trodden in something, which we had. "Here's your pound."

"A pound? A chuffin' POUND?"

"If you don't like it, there's plenty of teenagers who'd happily work here for nothing."

"A fucking POUND?"

She's got a foul mouth, ScarySister.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:28, 5 replies)

Guilty
I must have been impressively stingy over the last 3-4 months, when I've been living on an average of about £30 a week, scrounging together money wherever I can. Thank god I've finally got a paycheque coming my way this week...I'm going straight out and buying a fur coat to celebrate...Anyway, the point of this moan is to put in context something which happened last week.

I was hanging around the club where I've been DJing, having a cigarette, when this guy shuffles up and asks for 50p. It wasn't a nice night and I did feel a bit sorry for him having to wander the streets, but I also didn't have 50p to rub together, so I had to tell him no.

As he turned away, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration as to how I could do something for him. I called out: "Hey, mate, do you want a cigarette?". He came back looking genuinely happy, so I set to rolling him one, talking as I went.

"I'm afraid I've only got menthol filters, if that's okay? You know what they say though," (My mind caught up with what I was babbling on about just as it left my mouth) "beggars can't be choosers."

He just stares at me, an I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that expression on his face. "Yeah". Then we both remained silent until I finished rolling and he walked off into the night, shaking his head.

Anyway, top tip for the stingy, if you don't want to give them money and you smoke, offer them a cigarette. Just don't be an insensitive twat while you do it.
(jabboy, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:21, 7 replies)

just remembered this one.
Years and years and years ago, the National Lotterry in the UK would have been going for about a year or so, and I won £10 by skillfully matching 3 numbers. On the exact same weekend my cousin won a thousand pound on a scratchcard version and my brother-in-law won quite a chunk of money ("more than 5k, less than 10K" is all he'd say) on the Spanish lottery (he was a HGV driver and lived there.)

Now in the interest of family love and harmony- I offerred to share my £10 with all the family if they did the same. Did they? Course not- tightwads.
(smells-like-victory-v's, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:11, Reply)

Another Tight Bank
Back in the days that the UK had a financial services industry, I found myself working for a consultancy who despatched me to a client in the wilds of Newcastle that sounds like Northern Crock.

It was the strangest place that I've ever had the misfortune to work, mainly due to their penny pinching nature: -
- we were not allowed to make phone calls on land lines, as any call in excess of 50p had to be investigated by the departmental manager. As southerners, any call was likely to breach this limit, so it was forbidden.
- we were not allowed to use mobiles, as client staff weren't allowed them in the office (wonderful, no phones at all then during the day)
- we had an ancient LaserJet 4, no suffix, that celebrated its 10th anniversary of manufacture with us. This thing only printed 1 page per minute. We were there to produce 100s of pages of documentation that had to be printed.
- paper was carefully rationed, as the stationery budgets for each area were closely monitored. God help us if we took a ream from the wrong cupboard.
- the drinks machine dispensed vile ersatz coffee for the princely sum of 15 pence, apart from half an hour in the morning and afternoon when it was FREE. This led to the entire floor of over 100 people queuing up for its dubious delights.
- we were forbidden the use of the internet, on the grounds of cost. This is fine, unless you have a team of a dozen consultants who need to confirm their flights/trains back to London, who are also denied the use of phones.

This was all penny pinching at its finest, as they would have been paying my employers in excess of 10 grand a week for our services. I truely hated that client.
(Scooby Don't, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 13:59, 3 replies)

and another thing....
All around my workplace on practically every wall there are posters that inform my colleagues and me that leaving taps on costs the company £250 pounds a week, leaving unwanted lights on £2000 a year and so on. All very right and proper and nobody should be wasting natural resources just because they dont pay the bill directly.

HOWEVER, none of the posters mention how much would be saved if all the directors had "normal" company cars and not the "all state of the art" performace BMWS, Range Rovers etc.
(smells-like-victory-v's, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 13:58, 4 replies)

Wunch of Bankers
A few years back I was working for one of the large banks on a fairly big IT project, costing in excess of £4 million. After 18 months of the usual infighting, cockups, and hard work that accompanies things of this nature, we get to the implementation weekend, which I end up managing on the basis of those that can, do.

We kick off at 16:00 on Friday in Birmingham, having had a normal working week in London, and I finish up about 2 am Monday morning, before getting up at 6am to ensure everything goes live as it should, which it did.

Now the expenses policy was that you were allowed to claim for a hotel breakfast, £14 at the place they put me up in, or a maximum of £5 from anywhere else. I was out of the hotel before the restaurant started serving, so hit Costa for a coffee and food on the way into the site.

The following week I submitted an expense claim for over £900 which included hotel accommodation and meals for myself and a couple of contractors, all totally legitimate and receipted.

A few days later I got a call from someone in our expense processing team, which had recently been outsourced to Mumbai to save a couple of UK salaries (seriously, the cost savings worked out to be fairly minor once all the management to ensure the outsourcing was running OK was taken into account), challenging my expense claim.

I had failed to follow policy, and had submitted a claim for a breakfast that amounted to £5.25.

They denied me 25 pence on an legit expense claim for 900 quid on a 4 million pound project which I'd slogged my guts out on, by calling me from India. If I'd had the hotel breakfast for 14 quid they'd have paid without question. Tight bastards.

May the tax payers have much pleasure putting the old nag out to pasture.
(Scooby Don't, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 13:42, 3 replies)

Legless' post reminds me...
Earlier this year, on a Bank Holiday, there was a knock on my front door. I answered it and was faced with two girls in Barnardo's t-shirts. "Hello," they chirped, "we're visiting you on behalf of Barnardo's children's charity." They then launched into a lengthy description of how I could give only £2 per month to help an orphan.

Three things sprang to mind as I (politely) said "No thank you":

1) Giving to charity is very a personal thing. If I want to contribute I am likely to have charities in mind with whom I have some sort of empathy or link.
2) Bearing that in mind, it is unlikely I'd be swayed into extra philanthropy by someone knocking on my door on my day off.
3) If I was the sort to be swayed into parting with money on the basis of a random stranger knocking on my door then that would make me some sort of vulnerable victim who needs protecting from cold callers, charitable or not.

I got annoyed about this and emailed Barnardo's:

Hi,

I understand the need for charities to maximise their fundraising. I understand charity muggers are one (annoying) way of doing this. What I don't understand is why someone thought it would be a good idea to send teams of charity muggers door-to-door in my neightbourhood. This does not endear me to your charitable cause. In fact, it has the opposite effect. I signed up to the Telephone and Mail Preference Services for a reason. If there is a door-to-door equivalent where I can register my address to stop being bothered by cold callers, that would be wonderful. It's one thing meeting charity muggers on the street; it's a very different matter when they're knocking, unsolicited, on my door on a Bank Holiday.

Good luck with all the fundraising done by Barnardo's - just please reconsider the tactics used.

Thanks,
CHCB

- which I thought didn't make me look like a total cunt, just a partial one.

I received a reply containing the sentence:
Door fundraising is one of Barnardo’s most successful forms of generating income. Indeed the £3.5m raised directly from this type of fundraising during the last financial year alone was enough to fund 55 projects for vulnerable children across the UK. For this reason the activity is extremely important to the children and young people we work with.

£3500000? I must be a complete tightwad. I wouldn't even give them two quid a month.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:44, 29 replies)

Grand Theft Auto
I've wasted countless hours watching him indoors playing this.

Every time he visits the hookers he beats them to death/runs them over and steals his money back.

I'm not sure this defines him a "tightwad" but I think perhaps it should be setting a few alarm bells ringing ...
(Penguins_Made_Me_Do_It is a dolt ... and she don't care, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:33, 14 replies)

A family thing
There were always stories of my Nanny's ways to save money...
For example, stealing all the free sausage rolls that our local Barclays Bank had laid out for customers to celebrate Christmas..

And the time she had the neighbour's son over for the weekend to trim her huuuuge garden... the poor guy sweated for 2 days straight and she refused to pay him anything as he had accidently bent a flower head...

I was witness to two events of her stinginess....
Once I was about 12 years old, I was in town and bumped into her. She said she would give me some pocket money... hurrah thought I, even though I would have to walk with her around the supermarket as she did her weekly shopping so she could get some change.
This took a not so good 45 mins... and at the end she dug out 50p and offered it to me... I thought it hadn't really been worth it, but hey, it could still buy me a few drumsticks and wham bars (important things at the age of 12)..
But then she suddenly shook her head, put the 50p back into her purse and said "sorry, I have bills" and then walked off..... Not impressed..

Another time we were having a pub lunch, at the end of the meal she took the plate containing my brother's levftover ketchup covered chips and started emptying them directly into her handbag... the waitress saw this and came over insisting she could get Nanny a doggy bag... But Nanny assured her it was fine, she was taking the chips home for her dog. There were two things wrong with this statement:
1- I'm not sure dogs are huge fans of chips...
2- She didn't even have a dog.

Strange days.



Oh and I've been told that a tramp once asked my Uncle for 10p for a cup of tea. My Uncle apparently gave him 50p and demanded change...
( awayfromthenumbers, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:30, Reply)

Even more library tales! My library-tale-cock spluffeth mightily!
Oddly enough, customers who owed big money (I've seen fines up to about £500 before) more often than not were quite happy to fork out the money. It was the customers who owed little amounts who were the arseholes.

One customer in particular would never, EVER pay his fines, and he had fines every time he came in, without question. According to him (on various occasions), he shouldn't have to pay because:

- He was burgled (4 times)
- He's been in prison (twice)
- He had a falling out with his sister who hid the books (god knows how many times)
- His mum died (3 times)

I dunno, I think lying about your mother dying to get out of paying 20p in fines is a little mean spirited. Especially when she's apparently been resurrected and subsequently snuffed it twice again afterwards.
(GONEism, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:23, Reply)

Spank it hard
Inspired by the per diem story below.

On my last great business trip from a certain well known European bank, I rounded off my 8 weeks on the road by taking the entire IT department of a small Ukrainian bank out to Nobu in Kiev, where we ate like emperors, had cognac, cigars and the delightful company of some of the most extraordinary hookers you have ever seen (speculative, business development type company, nothing lude). I was then presented with a gold membership to the local cat house and we were all invited along en-masse by the owner who somehow took a shine to me (or my spending habits) for an evening of towering depravity.

Claim for that night? $4000USD, give or take.

Paid, then promptly laid off, with 6 months salary, along with 700 other poor fuckers I worked with. Department taken over by frankfurt office and 'rationalised'.

Caught up with my mate who I used to work with some months later who was still doing the same job. After three weeks in Nigeria, he'd returned and submitted his claims, only to be given a full-on disciplinary hearing for...

Having two puddings.

At a cost of less than 1USD.

Those miserly depraved box-headed fuckers deserve all the credit crisis they can eat...
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:19, 1 reply)

LEAVING PRESENT? NO THANKS
We worked with a guy who would always say yes for a coffee from the cafeteria, so long as someone else was buying. He never offered to buy anyone a drink. When he left, we all threw in to buy him a coffee machine, which he opened in front of about 30 of us. "Oh, I don't drink coffee" he said. " I only drank them because they were free." Scab.
(Kathleen, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:07, 1 reply)

Economy 7
I used to know a bloke who owned a few properties in bath, which is the equivalent of having a license to print money.

Anyhow, he was once at the Corporation Tip and rescued a tumble drier that he was told was 'functioning but noisy'. He brought it home and, because electricity was expensive, connected it up to his economy 7 tariff circuit. So the tumble drier burst into life at 01.00 and woke the entire house up. And this was a bloke who was worth about half a million quid.

PS he also used to cut the 5p off coupons out of my paper whilst I wasn't looking.
(Toooldforallthis, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:41, Reply)

Thrifty Tramps.
A tramp died last month in the stairwell of a multistorey car park down here, and he was one of the most popular vagrants (with other vagrants) in the city.

This caused a massive vagabond pilgrimage to the stairwell, with about thirty of his hobo bretheren coming to pay tribute.

They spent all week begging and busking in the streets, and going around to local businesses asking for donations for their fallen gentleman of the road. A few of these shops gave generously as they were quite fond of the drifter, so I was wet with anticipation to see what they were gonna purchase as a tribute.



Dandelions and daisies shoved in a collection of Tennants and Special Brew cans.
( Harold Bishop's Love Child some sort of terrifying sex magician., Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:28, 3 replies)

The commissary.
I once worked at an agricultural research station in the middle of India, called ICRISAT. Alongside the facility there was about a 100 or so "halls of residence" type flatlets that the local Indian PhD students rented. Being stationed on campus had many benefits - constant clean water, security and perhaps most importantly - electricity; as there was an onsite generator.
But the powers at be were careful not to waste natural resources and hired (DUN DUN DARRR-- )The "Commissary of Housing."

The Commisarry of Housing (praise his name) used to walk around campus every night at 7 o'clock on the dot. If he spotted a light inside a student's room it could mean dire consequences.

He used to insist that it was wasting electricity if the light was on and the curtains open because "The light can leak out". He carried a longstick with him and
would tap on any offending windows.

I tried (tactfully) on several occasions to dissuade him but he continued (continues) to stop those pesky photons from escaping.

The strange thing is.... I still think he might be right. {scratches head, draws meaningless equations on napkin, gives up}
(smells-like-victory-v's, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:25, 5 replies)

Argos
For Christmas Argos are tying the poor into 222% interest deals.

The card has been described as being "wicked", but I can't help thinking there is a down side.

itn.co.uk/news/4b06f8349e967867c612fc10399b19c2.html
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:12, 6 replies)

Tight as a gnats chuff.....
A year or so ago we (my colleagues and i)were at work and discussing what we were going to lavish upon our repected partners on Valentines day. I had a great idea (at the time) to buy my wife a digital photo frame and upon it have photgraphs of our lovely daughter and recent wedding. WOW what woman could ask for more i thought. One of my colleagues thought the same and so we invested our hard earned cash into 2 of these. HOWEVER my other colleague decided to invest his hard earned cash into a hoover for his wife, not only that but it was a reconditioned one from the scrap yard/tip. We laughed until our sides burst and couldn't believe the cheekiness of his tightwaddery......The next day my wife was less than impressed about the photo frame and it was quickly removed from my mantlepiece and placed in a box somewhere never to be seen again, my colleague's wife however loved her hoover and hoovered away until her arms bled and absolutely adores it(scored millions of brownie points) and still uses the hoover today i am correctly informed.
Thats love for ya..!
(whuppingboy, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:01, 6 replies)

More library tales
Library bosses being tight is to be understood really, since the annual budget was usually £20 for the county, plus a £5 waterstones voucher. Yet curiously whenever we had big council executive-y types to visit, it was expected of us to present the library as a thriving, well presented and thoroughly modern and contemporary. The logic was if they saw us struggling, rather than help us out they'd just kill us off (and anyone who has worked in local government that the higher ups really are that evil).

So on the morning of one of these visits, I get to the sliding doors to find they don't open. After getting in through the fire doors, I notice all the lights are out. And the computers are off, and the phones don't work. We call our sister library and ask them to send a message out that we'd had a power cut, but throughout the morning I notice my normally satanic boss getting more and more irate. Understandable, I guess, since these posh blokes in suits were coming. Still, a power cut can't be helped, can it?

Well as a mater of fact, this time it could be helped. The evil boss had kept putting off paying the electricity bill and they finally decided to cut us off. We left some leaflets on her desk about debt management and ocean finance and the like. That made her angrier. Oh well.
(GONEism, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:01, Reply)

Gay people can be misers too!
After my first year in University, in halls, I went out and rented a flat in town with my best mate from my course. You can find out a lot about people without living with them - I knew he "preferred the intimate company of gentlemen" - but there's a lot you can't. Like realizing that someone is a total fucking miser.

So we move in and, to smooth things along (and being a stupid, naive and inexperienced young student), I sign up to most of the utility bills in my name.

The penny began to drop that there was something not quite right with this guy when I started spending more weekend time with him. He had a succession of "boyfriends" come up from London, all of whom seemed to be immensely rich. He'd then spend the whole weekend living the life of Riley at their expense, after a couple of weeks of which they'd mysteriously vanish, only to be replaced by a new model after the next clubbing trip down to the smoke. Once we were flat sharing, I used to get invited out on these little jaunts, and the "boyfriend" usually seemed happy to extend his largesse for his partners' flatmate. The first couple of times I thought this was a great wheeze, but when it happened time and time again, it was a bit troubling.

It starting to trouble me directly when the weather turned colder and we started to have the heating on. My flatmate refused to turn on the radiators in his room in order to save on heating costs. I thought this was fair enough, so when the first gas bill came in I suggested he only pay a third, and I pay the rest. He didn't like this suggestion and, to my astonishment, got in contact with British Gas the next day and attempted to find out exactly how much a given length of radiator took to run per hour so he could calculate precisely how much we should each pay. Of course, this would entail us keeping perfect records of how long each of us was running a radiator for and then doing long sums to calculate the totals each quarter. It seemed self-evident to me that this sort of record keeping was both pointlessly annoying and likely to lead to even more bitter arguments over the bill, so I just let it lie and paid the whole thing myself.

That was bad enough, but what really took the biscuit was the phone bill. My flatmate took incoming calls, but never made them - again, on the pretext of saving money. So, on phone bill time, I suggested we split line rental and I pay for the full costs of the calls. Fair enough, you might think? Not a bit of it! No, apparently us having a phone line was a luxury and he'd do without it if he had to, so it was my responsibility entirely and I'd have to pay the whole lot. Wanting to actually be able to stay in touch with my friends and family and the bill being in my name I had to comply.

After six months of this shit, I'd had enough and moved out having got him to agree to allowing me to sublet the room to someone else. He didn't insist on vetting the candidates though, so I saddled him with the most peculiar individual I could find - a mature student who wanted to have his entire family visit from time to time and live in the small room. I was absolutely delighted to discover, some months later, that the subletee had moved out after causing considerable domestic chaos, leaving a couple of months rent unpaid which my previous flatmate had had to stump up to the angry landlord. I suspect the total came to quite a lot more than 50% of a couple of gas and phone bills.

Karma, everyone. Karma :)
(MattDP (Squiggle), Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:59, 1 reply)

Nationwide Building Society....
Now I know that everybody has been going through some financial problems, but I thought from the TV adverts that the Nationwide is supposed to be helping us poor working humans.

Two months ago we had a few days between the direct debits being asked for and there being enough money for them to go, the result being that six were returned at a cost of £30 a time.

So last month the Nationwide took £180 out of our account to cover their charges. This resulted in our insurance company trying three times to take four direct debits because we didn't have the money in our account...

So thats £360 they want next month.

So I rang their customer services to ask if they would agree to just taking one £30 a month instead of it all at one time.
They called it a 'descending overdraft', they'd give us a £360 overdraft and £30 a months would be taken from the account to get us back to normal.

Sounds good, yes?

BUT to initiate this they also wanted to cancel all our direct debits and make our cards invalid until my next pay day in a fortnight.
Yep, that'll be the debits for rent, electric, gas, buildings and contents, and the cards we need to get money out for food, etc...

The phrase I used was 'forget it'.

So we're now looking for a new account with the idea being to put slightly more than the cost of debits each month....

Just as an aside, why don't banks do direct debits that can come out every 28 days for those of us who get paid every 4 weeks?
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:56, 2 replies)

i think one correlation
with all these stories are peoples lack of respect for the homeless, obviously not b3tans by the sound of things but it seems apparent that we really do have some horrendous specimens of human beings in the world. or bankwag twunts to put it simply.

good on those who help out where possible to those ill-fortuned enough to end up living out of a cardboard box and wondering where the next meal/special brew is coming from. i think we can all take a leaf out of their books.

sorry, off topic but worth a mention i thought.

can we set up b3tan soup kitchens? a warm meal and some depraved humour to boot. sounds a good'un to me...
(Catch21, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:55, 1 reply)