Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The right decision by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court have just spoken and they have announced their judgement: the banks can continue to charge for unauthorised overdrafts; their charges are not excessive. There is now a great deal of noise from campaigners who want the charges refunded to those who took money from banks that they weren't authorised to take and wasn't their money to take.

So, I for one want to speak up for the responsible customers who keep to the agreement to spend only their own money or not to take other people's money without permission. These people would have been the big losers if the Supreme Court had gone the other way. They would have been stung for charges as it would almost certainly have meant the end of free banking. Why penalise the responsible?

If your can't stick to the agreement you made, expect penalties, and accept responsibility for your own actions.

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Sent via BlackBerry

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agree with you.

Except in very special circumstances incurring an unauthorised overdraft seems like the customer breaking their contract with their bank. They shouldn't therefore expect any sympathy.

The exception circumstances might include e.g. a delay in an inpayment which was not the customer's fault e.g. their salary payment being late.

RobC said...

While I agree with your general sentiment that the rekless should not be subsidised by the prudent, from my work experience I am aware that many paying these charges are simply people who are struggling for various reasons, not necessarily of their making, to make ends meet. Excess charges exacerbate their difficulties and often you start paying charges on charges etc. There are ways to combat this but in truth most are not highly literate and numerate middle class professionals who can play the system to their advantage.

Banks should of course charge but their charges must be fair, perhaps say £5 - £10 rather than £38 per item. Many though by no means all have reviewed their charging structures recently so hopefully these problems will not recur so widely in the future.