Zero Tolerance? Tell it to your bank...

It is a sad fact that four out of every ten marriages in the UK end in divorce. It is a sadder fact that only one in ten of us will change banks during our lifetime.

The relationship we have with our banks is a long and some would say, destructive one. We start as childhood sweethearts, meeting on the high street on a Saturday morning. The promise of a free schoolbag and an Adam Ant poster was all it took and before you knew it you had a young saver account.

Fidelity, or lack of it, is always a problem. Your bank is forever flirting with new customers and promising them the earth. Cheap deals, free stuff, but what about you the loyal partner? No more gifts for you or candlelit dinners. The rot sets in pretty quickly.

The infidelity wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t flaunted at you all of the time. Have you ever popped into your local branch, on those rare occasions when it is open, to pay in a cheque. The golden rule seems to be one cashier to service existing customers for every three sales people prowling up and down the queue trying to sell you something else that you don’t need. You generally hope that if your spouse is going to cheat on you, that they at least have the decency to do it behind your back.

Unfortunately the abuse doesn’t stop there. The regulator found that for many years they have been selling us things that we didn’t need and that wouldn’t pay out when they were due, and they were fined millions for it. This would be almost forgivable if it was a genuine error but it turns out that in many cases it was a deliberate ploy, driven by sales targets and greed. At least Dick Turpin had the courtesy to wear a mask.

Normally when you catch you spouse cheating there is at least some penitence shown by the guilty party. Perhaps flowers, expensive jewellery, a sudden interest in DIY. In the relationship with our bank however, they still protest their innocence to the contrary even when caught red handed.

The Financial Services Ombudsman is the body that overseas complaints in the financial services industry. Any complaints that cannot be resolved between the customer and the company are referred to the FOS for adjudication.  A bit like the Jeremy Kyle show but without the tracksuits and Ugg boots.

There are 100,000 companies that the FOS overseas and in 2009 it dealt with around 140,000 complaints in total. Of these over half, yes half, related to just seven banks. You don’t see those figures on the TV adverts do you?

To compound this, over 61% of the complaints were found in the customers favour. This means the bank had already investigated and rejected the complaint, yet was overruled by the Ombudsman.

You would assume that most people would deem this kind of relationship to be one not worth having but no, we battle on, trying to save the relationship for old times sake. We point to the fact that they provide us financial security in an uncertain world. In the last few years however, even this myth has been well and truly debunked.

It turns out that they have been spending the housekeeping money unwisely. In fact they have been taking our money and gambling with it. Then, whether they won or lost the gamble, they have been paying themselves huge bonuses. Their greed for these bonuses caused them to gamble too much and it all went wrong. They lost all of our money and nearly brought the whole financial structure down with them.

Of course at the time they said they were really, really sorry and could they borrow some more money from us to stop them going bust. Like love struck fools we said yes. ‘Surely, now they will change their ways’ we thought. But alas no, just eighteen months down the line they are again paying themselves huge bonuses again despite the fact that they haven’t paid us back yet.

So, if your Adam Ant poster has started to fade and you feel neglected, unloved, and you just don’t talk anymore, maybe you should switch your Direct Debits to somebody who loves you for who you are.

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