American inventor and businessman, Thomas A. Edison,
once said, “Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work
is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be
forethought, system, planning, intelligence and honest purpose as well as
perspiration” and throughout the difficulties of keeping my family afloat while
dealing with the aftermath of our financial demise I have, not unlike Edison, remained convinced
that a satisfactory resolution to my Halifax Bank of Scotland complaint will only be forthcoming if I remain sufficiently focused on all that is necessary to accomplish the task at
hand.
Committed to the pursuit of an intelligent solution to our predicament following the collapse of our property business (2008) and
the forced sale of our home (2009) I have diligently, trawled for
news of government rescue packages together with banking reforms and financial regulation
which might aid my endeavours. With each and every letter I have written, I have
increased my understanding of the ways in which huge organisations like the FSA,
the FOS and HBOS are expected to operate and familiarised myself with the
guidelines by which they are supposed to abide. The by product of this has been
a much broader knowledge and a substantial helping of increased confidence.
Entering the beginning of my fifth year of battle, I
remain hopeful that media interest, public outrage and my own refusal to be
fobbed off by bully boy banksters and their regulators will eventually combine
to affect a change which alters the way in which banks have so far been permitted
to treat their victims. However, despite my best efforts and the pre Christmas
promises of both HBOS and the FOS with regard to my over valuation complaint, I
have to concede to date I have accomplished very little and even the past few weeks
spent in hot pursuit of a hearing for my HBOS complaint have done nothing to change
this.
Tempered in expectation as a result of HBOS’s past
performance but, nonetheless, hopeful my long overdue request of almost year
might have come to fruition by 2 January 2013 (as per the deadline HBOS set for
themselves) I still remain with without word or any sign of progress. Resigned
to chalking up this absence of outcome to an all too predictable lack of HBOS inertia in the face of any investigation, I am doubly disappointed to find the
FOS, after admitting they miss handled and delayed the investigation into my
HBOS compliant early last year, have once again reneged on their assurances to affect
investigative compliance from this too big to fail 41% taxpayer owned bank by
not insisting they respond to my accusations within the time frame specified.
It is my belief this lack of momentum only goes to prove, despite
what the government, the bankers and their regulators would have us believe;
- Rescue packages were designed to rescue the bankers and not those who are having their homes repossessed or their investments devalued
- Fines and settlements have allowed the bankers to move on but not their victims
- Banking fraud has proved a lucrative and prosecutionless pass time which has shown no moral regard for the (estimated) hundred million people it has driven into destitution and suicide
- FSA remuneration codes and EU directives do nothing to encourage banker’s to cap their earnings or persuade them to behave responsibly in the future.
- The UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service is at best a shambles and at worst a complete sham.
No comments:
Post a Comment