The Banker Always Win

The Banker Always Wins

The red telephone rings and a 5′8” version of Santa Claus answers the phone. After a couple of sounds of agreement and surprise, he hangs up the phone and turns to the person in the chair. An offer has been made by the banker and we hear those famous words “no deal”.

What a great ideal world, where the banker rings up and we can tell him just where to stuff it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t transfer to the “real” world too well.

As I am sure everyone is aware, the banking system practically faced a meltdown in 2008 and had to stand for a £500bn bail out by the Government. Of the money used as a bail out, £50bn of it was taxpayers’ money. An average of £2,000 from each taxpayer.

So, I ask you – the taxpayer – do you feel like you have helped and been helped in return?

Lets have a look at the facts since the banks received their bail out.

Gordon Brown made a bold step and said no more fat pay days for banking managers. Which was a good step, why should they receive bonuses for, well – losing every ones money?

It wasn’t just bad investment choices of ‘Oh look, there’s only one bank for that country – seems safe to invest’ it was also poor lending, or risk management, decisions. Yes granted, somebody that can’t afford to pay back something they want to borrow, shouldn’t really borrow it but ask yourself honestly – if you were desperate to borrow, would you try anyway?

I’m certain that question will have a mixed response of Yes and No but not all blame can be placed upon the borrower. Lets say someone wants to borrow £20,000 over 5 years. With a good credit history, they’re probably going to have to pay back around £27,500.

Breaking that down over the period, that is £458.33 per month re-payment to the company which is roughly £5,500 per year. Now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out they are going to have to earn at least 3 times that amount to be able to afford to pay it back – even with 3 times the amount, would quite possibly struggle to pay it back.

So when people were approaching banks, and clearly not earning enough to pay back loans, banks were all of a sudden surprised the re-payments were not being made.

A mixture of both of these, and a few other bits and bobs pretty much added to the banking crisis. All the banks guilty of lending everyone, including other banks, money they didn’t actually have in the first place.

Going back to the bail out, and the main point of what I am even writing today – of this £2,000 you, a taxpayer, have “donated” to the banks – how much of this money do you think you’ll see again?

If you have a direct debit reject, or go overdrawn (even if only 1p) your bank will still charge you, and for a laugh – why not call them for a lecture on how to ensure you have enough money to pay your bills. Pot, kettle, black. A common sense approach from the banks would clearly make them notice, they’re even more unpopular than Heather Mills at the moment and that they may just want to stop treating their customers like their personal ATM machines. Even a Christmas card from my bank would have been nice.

Just to prove the point, and confirm that they have no idea on when and how to stay out of the limelight for a little while – it’s decided a good thing to do with some of the bail out money, is to buy each other! Of course, I mean Lloyds TSB and HBOS announcing that they are to merge and become a “Super Bank”. Wow, a bigger and faster way to lose money! Bravo guys.

So, next time you get a letter from your bank stating that you didn’t have enough money in your account to make a payment, and confirming that you will be charged for pleasure of not paying anything for you – why not, copy and past the below into Word and send it off to them. If not for any other reason than just to give you something to do on your day off/sick day.

Dear Sir or Madam

Thank you for your letter dated xxxx regarding the payment not being made on my account.

Firstly I would like to apologise for the oversight in not having enough money to make the payment. It is currently a difficult time for me financially but it’s OK as I’m sure any day soon Mr Brown will be knocking on my door with £50bn of my neighbour’s money so I can spend it on buying some more debt like my heroes (NAME OF YOUR BANK).

I would also like to send my apologies to the person who had to spend 7hours rejecting this payment on my behalf, because judging by the amount you are charging me for this pleasure, I don’t think they would have been able to get anything else done all day.

I see from your letter that you have confirmed the charge will be deducted from my account on or around the xxxx. Before you do debit this charge, I wonder if you would be able to look into the possibility of deducting this from the £2,000 you owe me as a tax-payer?

I would really appreciate your prompt response.

Yours faithfully,

xxxxx

Like I say, if nothing for a want of something better to do, it could be funny sending it.

Until the next time I have something to ramble out, I bit you farewell kind people.