Ads that get right on your tits

[Ratsoap]

For what it's worth Giles, the banks will usually refund a charge like that as a 'goodwill gesture' if you phone up and start ranting.

[Ollie]

No, what makes a standard current account free is the fact you're handing over your money to the bank which they can use to invest, making a shitload of money and paying a meagre amount of interest back for the privilege. No, people shouldn't go overdrawn without permission but we shouldn't forget that we're doing the bank a favour with our custom.

This. Bear in mind that the banks charge many times more interest on loans than they pay on current or savings accounts. Plus they're allowed to lend up to 10x what they have on deposit. It's certainly not the odd £25 for a letter that makes up the vast majority of their profits. Several thousand percent net profit margin on loans sounds pretty profitable to me.

[Alarm]

Even people stranded on islands without a television aren't immune to the annoying tenor.

[gumboot]

Ridiculous cases where these "costs" then push an account into overdraft for which even *more* charges are then imposed only serve to further expose these things for what they are - weaselly systems put in place deliberately to exploit edge conditions in order to get money out of the very people who can least afford it.

You can't call that a ridiculous case. It's the intended operating region.

Like I say; pinball scoring mechanics. Once you hit overdraft it switches on the bonus multiplier and they score extra points on every target.

The only thing they have to avoid is the big hole at the bottom marked "bankruptcy". If the ball goes down there they lose all their points.

[gilesgoat]

There was an interesting chat on BBC4 radio an hour ago about "ads on thootpaste and thootpaste marketing" which is
an ENORMOUS business.

Fundamentally .. "all the claim about thootpaste miracles are semi-bollocks" .. for example "yes there is SOME whitening
component in this thootpaste" .. BUT .. is so small that is practically ineffective ( only a dentist can give you THAT kind
of whitening - it needs fuckload more bleach and stuff than what could be possibly put in a thootpaste ) and/or at most
means there is some more abrasive in it.

Pro enamel/pro thing/pro whatever .. "yes but no yes" again, see above.

Rule of thumb "the very special case often obtained ONLY in the laboratory is mangnified N times and presented like
'the standard normal case you'd get' " .. it's not "totally false" but "semi false".

In some cases it seems what they claim is going to happen in reality refers to a tested condition in the lab, supposedly
to "simulate" a real one where that "simulate" is not really "that good" (i.e. what happens in reality can be SO different
that the test condition is usless compared to when you are going to use that in the real world ).

And so on ..

[gilesgoat]

Ridiculous cases where these "costs" then push an account into overdraft for which even *more* charges are then imposed only serve to further expose these things for what they are - weaselly systems put in place deliberately to exploit edge conditions in order to get money out of the very people who can least afford it.

You can't call that a ridiculous case. It's the intended operating region.

Like I say; pinball scoring mechanics. Once you hit overdraft it switches on the bonus multiplier and they score extra points on every target.

The only thing they have to avoid is the big hole at the bottom marked "bankruptcy". If the ball goes down there they lose all their points.

I still have to find where in TINY print that "operating region" is described in the contract I signed.

[carolen]

Oh thank Ghod, Mitchell & Webb just made my day:

"If your children get dirt on them they'll explode. PROBABLY."

[sack]

The secret to beauty you say?



For whiter teeth, quick weight loss and eyelashes full of volume.

[GigerPunk]

The secret to beauty you say?
For whiter teeth, quick weight loss and eyelashes full of volume.

And dislocated or distorted limbs, don't forget that:


Don't know how I forgot this one, but those bloody insurance ads with Paul Whitehouse pretending to be various happy customers?
No doubt they've paid him a fair bit for them, being a big name in comedy, but why?
If it was unknown people playing the characters he's doing then that'd be normal and I'd just accept it being the usual pack of lies, but why pay someone well known to just advertise the fact it's a bunch of made-up characters and hence a load of bullshit testimonials?
'Course, it doesn't help all the ads are painfully unfunny too...

[Governmentyard]

If they don't want someone going over the limit, then just don't hand over the money.

Without getting into how banking IT systems work (not like that) I'm glad I've got the option to go into an unauthorised overdraft or call 24/7 (or go online, or go into a branch) and arrange one and having read my small print I know how much it'll cost me. Interestingly yesterday my bank sent me a letter explaining the o/d charges in large clear type as opposed to some list of terms and conditions. This is in line with the banking code for communication clarity and that's been in place for some time. These direct debits that take people overdrawn they get 2 week's notice of. Of course the average human needs way longer than this to pick up a phone or walk into a branch, don't they?

A lot of accounts aren't free anymore, anyway. They're trying to do away with them, and when you do start paying regular account maintenance charges do they stop with the unarranged overdraft fees? No, they do not.

Why would they? To do you a favour? Don't forget these are public limited companies where the directors are legally obliged to maximise profit for their shareholders and would have an impossible time justifying stopping o/d charges at their AGM. There's still plenty of free accounts out there for anyone who wants one.

I used to send those letters out for a living, believe me for every person who had 'unwittingly' gone overdrawn (because it's impossible to see how much you've got in your account before you spend money these days, isn't it?) there were many more who'd got a £100 mobile phone bill or the full sky sports package taking them over the limit.

What distinction are you driving at, here?

That banks had reached a position ten years ago where the unfortunate debtors were paling in comparison to the "can't be arsed managing my money" entitlement brigade. Twenty years before then banks had managers in branches who'd bring you in and lecture you for going over drawn and the public didn't want that so they replaced it with this system we've got now. No-one likes it either. The attitude was "who are you to tell us how to manage our money?" the response was "ok, do it yourself" and the result was thousands upon thousands of people daily taking the piss.

[Governmentyard]

If someone is going to charge me £25 for some product or service then I expect to agree to it first upfront, not have it arbitrarily imposed. And by "agree" I mean properly, as in deciding it's something I want, not something buried in a bunch of legal crap that nobody ever reads when you sign up.

Ridiculous cases where these "costs" then push an account into overdraft for which even *more* charges are then imposed only serve to further expose these things for what they are - weaselly systems put in place deliberately to exploit edge conditions in order to get money out of the very people who can least afford it.

You might not read the legal crap but I do, as I'm signing to say I've read it. You can expect all you want but that's not how the world works. This very forum has members of many year's standing who get stung for not having read the t&cs on here, such things are everywhere.

The 'roll-up' charging this is well out of hand I'll agree, but, y'know, if you really really need to be on a mobile phone for £1000 of time or watch all the premiership on sky, or even if you are genuinely running out of money one week, phoning your bank and asking them what will or can happen takes less time than reading the small print in the first place. I can't recall ever seeing a charge on anyone who ever called up to talk about it first's account.

To address someone else's point about profit from current accounts - LTSB's profits were largely thrown back into fraud protection from retail banking while I was there - these massive profits you read about come from overseas investment (or they did) and current/savings accounts were a drop in the ocean.

Bank adverts though? Those get right on my tits.

[Governmentyard]

I still have to find where in TINY print that "operating region" is described in the contract I signed.

It's probably not in your contract but the most recent information regarding charges. This will be sent out as often as changes are made, which is usually once every year or so in my experience.

If you really can't find any info about it ask your bank when and how they communicated this information to you and if they can't contact the banking ombudsman who will probably eventually get you your money back.

[gilesgoat]

Code: Select all

Anyway in essence, apart from chronical spenders or don't-care-what-I-spend the problems nowadays is that cost of
living is quite high and incomes are low, for some at least.

So 'yes saving' .. if you'd earn enough money to actually save.

'Yes invest' .. if you'd have various thousands spare that you coud try to invest into something.

Thing is many people today struggle to just get even at the end of the month with a pretty basic living because income
is what it is and costs of everything seems to be constantly, incessantly and always raising.

Inflation raises as well, this create the infamous spiral of people asking for higer wages to deal with raising costs raising
costs even more and such and also the people with less money spending less money less money in circuation less business
less stuff to earn even less money to spend.

I think we are not quite in various business into a deadly spiral of lower costs, lower profits per unit, need massive volume
of sales to make profits because as people have less money to spend the only way to make them spend is to lower prices
massive sales, market saturation, ocean of products, very short lifespan.

I think anyway, maybe as an experiment, if they would totally eliminate overdrafts and say "ok when you don't have you
don't have and I don't give you anything" I'd love to see what's going to happen maybe everything would change a bit.

Locked prices and locked wages and locked taxes/benefits/everything ( for a while ) now that should be another
interesting experiment as well, see if things would recover a little after a bit of that.

[Portland]

Fuck me, just seem some van insurance comparison site who've dragged up the Sweet guitarist from minicabbing or playing WMCs and are doing the whole fox on the run thing. I feel violated.

[Alarm]

The Windsor family member advertising a bingo website. Grr.