Quick money for Christmas

On GMTV again this morning (6.40am!!) talking about bank charges...again. Understandable as it's an emotive issue. However, they had me on with a guy called Stewart who is organising a protest outside the Office of Fair Trading tomorrow to try and make them force the banks to bring their, admittedly outrageously high, charges down from the usual £25-35 per misdemeanour to a more manageable £5 or so a time.

I can't stand these charges, but I think this whole campaign is silly:

• It's not going to affect the OFT's decisions
• There's something slightly pathetic about consumers running to the OFT about it. If we were more grown-up we would tackle our banks individually over it, demand that the money be re-credited and if they don't play ball then we would walk. Actually, simply ringing up the bank if they charge you for mistakenly going overdrawn for a day or so is a good way of getting the money back anyway. If you're reasonable enough and persistent enough they will do it 'as a goodwill gesture'.
• The banks are already planning a whole different set of charges with which they can replace these 'misdemeanour' charges. First Direct has already brought in a monthly fee for current accounts and the others are just gagging to follow suit. The louder we shout about the unauthorised overdraft fees the harder they will work at finding other nasty ways to take our money - and they will affect more of us.

A far more effective - and pleasant - way of getting even in the short-term is to log on to the Which website and download their template letters for getting your old charges back. It's a marvellous exercise for anyone who has been a bit lax in the past and has had various late payment charges. You can claim half of the money back, dating back to charges incurred over the last SIX years! If you're strapped for cash for Christmas, I would definitely suggest this as a great free money route...although remember, the more people who do it, the more money the banks have to pay out, the less they like it and the quicker they will come up with other ways of fleecing us. Hey, they're second-hand money shops whose sole pupose in life is making money. They won't put up with falling profits for a nanosecond. If they don't get us on the swings they will definitely get us on the roundabouts.

Comments

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