An Opinion About Banks And Reclaiming Bank Charges
Now that the banks are being saved by the taxpayer, perhaps the tax payer should be allowed to have some sort of say, in regards to the way that things are being run.
Customers have seemingly been disrespected by the banks, forever. Massive salaries for directors, stupidly large bonuses for mis-selling products to consumers. Thanks to the government the taxpayer is now bailing them out to the tune of �500b. so what should we be asking for in return?
The consumers should be treated better, and the mistreatment is across the board, with so many complaints being received by Money Mail, per year. Complaints about being left on hold at call centres that may not even be in this solar system, and having to complain about the same thing, a multitude of times.
Banks should treat complaints with at least some level of seriousness. As well as this, complaints phone calls should not have to involve consumers calling non free numbers, especially in view of the fact that are going to be put on hold. Free, or at least geographical numbers should be issued.
Banks should be resolving complaints within an allotted time period, and then phoning customers to elucidate on why a problem has or has not been rectified.
If a taxpayer has been called upon to bankroll the banks, then they should not have to travel obscene distances to use one. There have been so many closures in recent times, and people have been left in a rather inconvenient situation. And with all of these mergers, and pending stream linings, it would seem that there are only going to be less branches.
Some research has been done,. And since 1990, 7,161 branches have closed, throughout the UK. An interesting, yet detrimental statistic, is that for every million people in the UK, there are 173 banks, whereas in Spain, there are 960.
No bank is given instruction to ensure that people have a bank within a certain radius of their community, and frankly this is wrong. Each taxpayer is underwriting the banks to the tune of �16,000, so surely they should be granted the privilege of having a branch within a realistic distance from them.
And if we, the people are going to help the banks out to such a princely tune, then surely we should not have to pay obscene charges every time we go overdrawn, and sometimes it is no more than a few pence. The same type of thing happens when coming to the end of a mortgage, and we also have to endure surreptitious charges on credit cards. There shouldn't have to be some long, drawn out process, whereby banks are given the chance to try and prove their non existent innocence; its insulting!
The systematic closing of accounts, for people that have challenged the banks, is nothing short of dystopia.
It seems there is no let up, when it is the biggest banks, such as NatWest, that cause their fair share of the problems, and refuse to do anything about it.
No one wants the banks to be non-profit, but surely they should work within the legal system, and make things as easy as possible for consumers to understand, as opposed to the antithesis, antipode, opposite.
Time then, that the banks clean up their act, and start working with the consumers that keep them open, as opposed to against them.