Unjust Desserts

American clergyman, activist and leader in the African civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Junior once said, “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” However, waiting for history to take a favourable course in the wake of the unquenchable avarice of our unprosecuted banksters has frequently proved beyond the capacity of some to face alone. For us, the determined spirit of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau has been invaluable.

First formulated in 1924 as result a of the Betterton Report on Public Assistance and launched fifteen years later on the day after the break out of the Second World War, this government funded service quickly found debt advice was a key issue for those who sought the expertise of its trained volunteers. After seventy successful years offering free consultations to those in need, their initial two hundred offices had expanded to three and a half thousand UK locations and its 21,500 volunteer staff had assisted some of the UK’s most vulnerable negotiate homelessness, asylum, state benefits, employment law, tenancy rights as well as two major recessions and the onset of the banking crisis.

The CAB now prides itself on being able to assist more than 14.2 million individuals a year. They are supported over the phone and the internet as well as provided with face to face advice from the bureau or visits to their homes. In 2003 following a review of its practices by the Office for Public Management, it was concluded, “the CAB service provides excellent value in return for the public funding it receives. It makes a significant contribution to individuals and communities, as well as to the process of policy-making and service delivery. Its holistic approach, national coverage and independence are to be cherished.”

Ten years have passed since this commendable observation was made and the CAB is currently busier than ever assisting those who have fallen foul of an economic crisis caused by criminality within the banking sector. With only the top 10% of wage earners in the UK continuing to prosper, it goes without saying many of the victims of debt and banking fraud would struggle to find refuge from their assailants without the CAB’s help. Yet despite increasing demand, the CAB has recntly been forced to turn hundreds of thousands of people away because their funding has been axed by 45%.  As a result of these governmental and local authority cut backs they have no alternative but to close offices which are still playing a vital role in the community. Sadly the CAB office which rescued my own sanity is to be one of them.

In contrast to the invaluable contribution being made by the CAB, the delusional and unrepentant bankers armed themselves with weapons of financial mass destruction, used the window of opportunity created by financial deregulation to approach their business activities without moral hindrance plundered the reserves of their banks, their customers and the economy.  Furthermore, by obtaining tax payer funded bailouts to preserve their jobs and their “modest” remunerations, they have cunningly redirected funding formerly earmarked for the auspicious community serving CA B and deftly removed the only means by which many of their victims have been able to fight back.

Roman economist, lawyer and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero once said,” There is no sanctuary so holy that money cannot profane it, no fortress so strong that money cannot take it by storm” and recent history clearly illustrates that a small group of inauspicious bankers have used money to both profane and to storm and it is the Citizen's Advice Bureau and it's service users who are now being forced to pay the price. 

The air that I breath

The Duke of Wellington once said, "All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do” and I find his words wholly descriptive of the process I have endured throughout my three year mission to obtain a meaningful dialogue with HBOS.

Grateful of knowledge gleaned of the lending industry via a career in financial services combined with a hundred years of financial expertise within my immediate family gave me the impression I would be well positioned to communicate with HBOS about our financial difficulties and effect a solution. Initially I hoped to avoid the forced sale of my home in 2008 by letting it for a three year period to a long term tenant. When this failed I believed an understanding of money might stand me in good stead when requesting debt forgiveness.  Instead, I discovered nothing could have been further from the truth when it came to dealing with the too big to fail bank, HBOS.

Over the past three years I have,

·        Fully explained our financial circumstances and supplied supporting evidence to HBOS

·        Enlisted the help of a many of charitable organisations to verify my circumstances to HBOS

·        Researched and quoted the guidelines for the FSA, FOS and CCS to illustrate my point to HBOS

·        Scrutinised and quoted from a plethora of literature on government guidelines and the Mortgage Code of Conduct to support my case against  HBOS

·        Absorbed the expertise of any number of insolvency experts, tax investigators, accountants and bankruptcy courts to quote to HBOS in an effort to make our position understood

And

·        Written hundreds of letters to HBOS, their agents and their regulatory authorities initially calling on the use of logic, then begging for empathy and compassion, and finally demanding a formal complaint.

Armed with the aforementioned industry insight, I had hoped for a practical and dignified resolution to our unrecoverable position would eventually be negotiated. Sadly my endeavours have resulted in nothing more than a vast accumulation of knowledge in areas where I formerly had little or no expertise.

On the other hand I have learned a great deal about debt, and am especially well informed on debt with HBOS. From three long years at the HBOS coal face I have discovered,

·        HBOS are neither interested in the truth nor are they motivated to reach a cost effective resolution to an individual’s financial problems

·        Charitable debt handling organisations regularly feel impotent when  battling the banks on behalf on their vulnerable clients and have little in their armoury to offer other than sympathy and bankruptcy

·        Regulatory guidelines for the financial services industry are rarely enforced and their in-house adjudicators are often, at best, subjective and at worst derogatory and unsympathetic

·        Individuals employed in debt collection on behalf of HBOS are often superior in attitude and extremely judgmental.

·        Bankruptcy and insolvency arrangements are a luxury many, including myself, cannot afford

·        No one really believes that debt forgiveness for the individual actually exists in spite of evidence I have supplied to the contrary

·        Letters of logic, compassion and complaint are rarely read by those who have the wherewithal to understand them

And,

·        A little bit of knowledge on the part of the individual can pose a very lucrative commodity when it comes to establishing HBOS’s culpability in the financial downfall of one of the 99%.

This week, I am to meet with the senior partner of a large and established law firm to ascertain if, after three years of pleading for debt mercy, it is I who has grounds to pursue a legal case against HBOS for causing my financial demise in the first place.

It is said there is no point complaining about the air if it’s all you have to breath. And for this reason I have previously looked only for solutions, and later compassion, from my HBOS oppressors. I had hoped our deficit would be forgiven and in so doing allow me to consider my family’s future in a life free from tormentors we could not satisfy.  Now there is the smallest of chances to enjoy a completely different out-look, I can only imagine the joy of breathing air which is no longer contaminated by debt. However, despite this somewhat over-whelming possibility for some good news....

I still won’t be holding my breath!

Rottweiler's Incorporated

In recognising how hard it is to change oneself it should be easier to understand what little chance there is of changing others. However, this said, should an observation of this nature apply to the perspective of a whole bank and all those employed within it? Is it feasible for one biligerent school of thought to extend, with infectious brainwashing tentacles, into the consciousness of all those individuals commissioned do the Bank of Scotland’s bidding. Is it really possible for an unpleasant mind set on such a scale to be alive and well in the minds of every individual in a company so large?

Today, within the walls of the Bank of Scotland, I am convinced it is.

Despite the numerous letters I have written requesting I be advised be of their instruction to debt collecting solicitors Merrils Ede’s, Bank of Scotland's reply has not been forthcoming.  Although Merrils Ede solicitors know, through our representative at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, I am unlikely ever to be in a position to repay any of our creditors, still they persist with their campaign of persecution with the Bank of Scotland’s blessing.

Today the postman brought a threat from Merrils Ede to start legal and bankruptcy proceedings if they do not hear from me within 10 days. They wish me to provide yet more financial evidence to prove I still don’t have any money.  It is clear the full financial fact find, certified by the CAB, and repeatedly sent to them has clearly proven insufficient again.  Regardless of the fact the Office of Fair Trading state this kind of harassment is contrary to their guidelines, the henchwoman at Merrils Ede continues with her crusade to uncover my "undeclared wealth". On their website they proudly state their debt collecting services regard money owed "like their own" and it goes on to say they pursue “can’t pay’s” in the same way as” won’t pays”.  I can certainly endorse this behaviour as the solicitor assigned to my case refuses to accept having no money is a good enough reason for not making a payment arrangement.

The fact  Merrils Ede has been made aware, on numerous occasions, our £217,000 shortfall is unrecoverable appears to be irrelevant. I am now being pursued by them because the CAB recently told them a great many of our creditors have written off and continue to write of our debts on the basis of hardship and compassion. The CAB did this in an effort to persuade the Bank of Scotland to follow suit, however, using only Rottweiler reasoning, the Merrils Ede henchwoman believes debts being forgiven must have resulted in some additional disposable income for her to direct into the Bank of Scotland's and Merrils Ede’s coffers.

I ask myself , “Is it really so hard to understand the reason so many of our debts have been forgiven is not because we have been paying anyone, but  because we have been unable, and continue to be unable, to make any payments to any of our creditors?” How can having a sum written off in these circumstances leaves anything more in the budget for Rottweiler’s incorporated?

This logicless pursuit is undoubtedly a breach of any number of OFT and Ombudsman guidelines and the ongoing bombardment of menacing letters from the Bank of Scotland’s legal representative is yet another source of agitation in a life full of financial instability and pressure. Moreover, Ms Rottweiler's refusal to believe my unredeemable financial position, is nothing short of insulting. 

Tonight, however, I plan to take solace in the words of Pope John XXIII and tomorrow....... well tomorrow, as with every day, I plan to fight back.

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. "- Pope John XXIII

Jeremy, Me and Lloyds TSB

"Banks are a danger to any economy"  a guest on Newsnight recently declared. This statement followed news the government funded Independent Commission for Banking will be announcing regulatory proposals aimed to avoid a repeat of the September 2008 banking crisis. Unsurprised to hear Jeremy Paxman could not persuade any bankers, including 43% taxpayer own Lloyds TSB Banking Group, to debate proposed banking guidelines, I am nothing short of amazed, if my case is anything to go by, if he ever manages to extract any form of meaningful communication from them at all. 

The lack of response to Jeremy Paxman's requests has only strengthened my belief there is little hope I will ever achieve any kind of dialogue with anyone within the Lloyds banking Group however hard I try. To date they have ignored all mine and the CAB's efforts to inform them of our unfortunate position and even my doctor's letter referring to my husband suicidal thoughts has secured no respite from their daily threats. I can only assume the LLoyds TSB's executives to whom I repeatedly write asking for respite from this bombardment have elected to willfully disconnect from the everyday world. It seems clear the financial distress of the individual has no interest to those enjoying comfortably appointed Ivory Towers from which to focus on next year's bonuses. 

Having never been "won't pays" but now, to our great shame, "can't pays" I find it incomprehensible a bank, who has itself been rescued from the brink of financial ruin, is now so unprepared to offer us a lifeline of any sort. While the government, via the tax payer, has seen fit to cover the debts of HBOS to aid economic recovery, for the individual with his back against the wall, banking giants Lloyds TSB and HBOS are compassionless. Thankfully for us they are the exception  rather than the rule. All other creditors have now written off our debts and wished us well in our endeavours for the future. In contrast both Lloyds TSB and HBOS have picked up the very pistol which was once pointing at them, given the order to take aim at my husband and I, and for the past two and a half years, left us on death row, waiting for their final order to fire. 

I can't help wondering if Jeremy Paxman is unable to encourage them to communicate, then how the devil can I?