Bank Charges for Current Accounts

[liam_s1 10]

Halifax wrote me to tell me I was getting charged £30 twice for using my Switch when my overdraft was worn out but because I paid the balance within seven days I never had the charges taken. Happy days.

 

Apparently there is a letter you can send saying it is illegal for such charges to be applied and they dont do it. My housemate has a letter template. I must ask it for him and I shall post it on here.

[Heyesey 11]

Apparently there is a letter you can send saying it is illegal for such charges to be applied and they dont do it. My housemate has a letter template. I must ask it for him and I shall post it on here.

 

It's only illegal for them to *make money* out of those charges. It's entirely legal for them to bill you for the costs they incur managing your cocked-up, overlimit account; but those charges don't come anywhere near what most banks try to clobber you with.

[scottf 21]

unbelievable- i have just moved to first direct and now they say this!!!

 

need a pay rise!

[Twiglet 10]

Not only can the banks afford to not this, they are charging the people who are on lower salaries and not the people who earn more and could afford it. I disagree with charging anybody but charging those with the lowest income is surely entirely the wrong way to go about it.

[nick2 10]

So they are going to charge the people with the least money, that sounds like a good idea, I bet it wins them loads of new customers.

 

Or are they saying "we don't want people who put less than £1,500 a month in their accounts" ?

 

*edit* Twiglet beat me to it

[Grandad.Malky 11]

30 years ago when I first started work I had to have £50 in my account or incur charges, this then went up to £100 so I changed banks, the idea is nothing new.

 

Does any mathematician want to work out what £100 is with 30 years inflation on top, £1500 seems a lot, but then again I think I was on about £20 a week so £100 was a months wage, maybe £1500 is comparable.

[riptony 10]

I think greed is the wrong word. Banks objectives are to make money for their shareholders, thats it. If they see this as a potential income stream fair play

 

If a bank wants to charge people.....let them. Just take your business elsewhere.....its simple.

[scottf 21]

oh its ok- i have a savings account with them, they won't charge me

[riptony 10]

30 years ago when I first started work I had to have £50 in my account or incur charges, this then went up to £100 so I changed banks, the idea is nothing new.

 

Does any mathematician want to work out what £100 is with 30 years inflation on top, £1500 seems a lot, but then again I think I was on about £20 a week so £100 was a months wage, maybe £1500 is comparable.

 

assuming annual inflation of 5% (take into account house prices) then £50 thirty years ago is now worth £216.10 and £100 thirty years ago is now £432.19

[cgksheff 44]

30 years ago when I first started work I had to have £50 in my account or incur charges, this then went up to £100 so I changed banks, the idea is nothing new.

 

 

It may be nothing new, but what has happened between then and now is the insistence of employers and government that payments be made through a bank account.

 

In the days of yore of which you speak, the bank account was more often a convenience, not an imposition as it is today. It certainly was not needed by manual workers to get paid, nor by the unemployed to get their dole.

[royjames 10]

First direct might end up losers over this if their customers switch their accounts.

If enough do just that then they might have to reconsider the charges,market forces and all that.

[Grandad.Malky 11]

assuming annual inflation of 5% (take into account house prices) then £50 thirty years ago is now worth £216.10 and £100 thirty years ago is now £432.19

 

 

 

Discarding the fact that at one point we had interest rates in double figures and as high as 15% it still makes £1500 look a lot doesn’t it.