Consumers not happy over treatment by banks

A recent report has suggested that many consumers are still furious over how they are treated by some of the nation’s major banks, and think that many of the banks are badly managed.

Public opinion and confidence in banks has been falling, and officials have said that banks can no longer use being huge and well established to make people think that their success is based on good management and fair treatment of customers.

One lawyer who deals in litigation against financial services stated: ‘For decades we’ve thought of banks as venerable, dependable institutions. But the current crisis has highlighted the fact that banks aren’t there to help. They are just corporate organisations like any other, with the same propensity to make mistakes.’

From everything ranging from bank charges on overdrafts to breach of security and underhand tactics to make money, banks are now becoming increasingly unpopular amongst consumers.

A number of consumers have experienced horror stories with banks, with some taking money out of their current accounts to pay off debts without telling them and others failing to provide borrowers with statement for many years allowing their debt to increase without their knowledge.

In the latter case banking giant RBS granted one customer a loan for around £8250. However, he had other debts and soon had to contact Citizen’s Advice, which calculated that he could only afford to pay £38 a month.

The courts confirmed that he could pay this amount per month, which he did for eight years, only to find at the end of it that RBS had been adding interest of around £400 a quarter to the loan, had not sent him any statements to advise him of this, and that he now owed £20,000. RBS has since apologised and written off the £20,000.