OFT case on bank charges. Test case starts today.

Bank charges, let the good fight begin.

Banks and their customers are awaiting the start of a High Court test case which could bring a fundamental change to UK High Street banking.

The outcome may decide how much banks can charge millions of account holders who go overdrawn without permission.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is challenging seven leading retail banks and the Nationwide building society.

**There are so many many reasons why I want and hope that the banks lose this case. The first one (and excuse me if I go on a bit here) is personal I used to work in the banking sector and saw the piss poor way that customers were treated and know for a fact that the FSA is little more than a corporate toothless talking shop for the banking/finance sector.

Also I had my own brief spat with a high street bank that fiscally raped me over a period of about four years. Not just charges but piss poor advice on top, combined with a total fucking lack of customer service.

Hell if it took me four years of fighting to get my -illegally taken - money back off the cunts at Barclays Bank PLC, then God help anyone who doesn't understand the terms and conditions and bullshit fed to customers on a daily basis.

Oh and to top it all, to this very day not one person. Not a single employee at that bank has ever said sorry. Despite a total of nine separate complaints over the four years, all of which I won, complaints covering staff attitude, call center call handling, charges etc etc.

Although Barclays in themselves are not alone in this shoddy attitude, much like the major parties that run politics here in the UK they have the market largely sown up and want to keep it that way. Although to my mind like New Labour they are a shower of crusty dried up cunts.

The threat that these cunts- thats the banks now not politicos - are making now is that free banking will end. Well guess what, it is a total crock to say that. The way the system works is like this:

The customer thats you & me - puts their money in the account. The bank then uses that money - the customers money, not the banks money they are just holding it for the customer - to generate more money for themselves and in return the bank then gives the customer a piss poor interest return on that sum.

Now the cunts want to charge us to put our money into their business to help them generate money.

Seriously would any, an I mean any other business charge you for lending them - and that is what you are doing - your money?

Now there are some banks that are saying that they will keep free banking, after all they want their rivals money. What the big banks are doing is relying on people not going through the hassle of closing down an account and transferring their direct debits etc to another bank.

Trust me its easy, I walked into a new bank after offering Barclays some overdue advice on sex and travel and some twenty minutes later it was all done. Oh and I have to say that unlike Barclays Bank my new bank doesn't cock things up about once a week and then fiscally fuck me up the arse for the privilage.

But seriously there is no way that any one can justify a £30+ charge for going over drawn by a penny?

It is now two years since the huge consumer campaign against bank charges took off.

But if the OFT wins, this will not automatically lead to compensation being paid to customers whose claims for refunds are currently stuck in the legal system, or who may belatedly realise they are owed money.

The issue of compensation, if any, will be dealt with by the FSA and the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The High Court hearing is expected to last eight days with a judgement being delivered by the court around Easter.

However, whichever side loses is highly likely to appeal - possibly all the way to the House of Lords - which means the issue may not be resolved until next year.

Barclays are apparantly "Fluent in Finance."

Well, that's fantastic. It's just a shame none of the fucking Indians that answer their phones are fluent in English.
Tags: oft, FSA, bank charges, carpetbaggers

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