Shocks and Horrors

Founder of the Johnson Publishing Company, grandson of slaves and the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400 list, John Harold Johnson, once said, “Dream small dreams. If you make them too big, you get overwhelmed and you don’t do anything. If you make small goals and accomplish them, it gives you the confidence to go on to higher goals” and, as a victim of the banking crisis, I have been left with no alternative but to face our family’s problems in much the same way.

Still reeling from the loss of my home, my livelihood and my financial future, I have spent the past five years piecing together a life which was shattered as a consequence of the fraudulent behaviour of the banks. Initially my goals were as small as I could make them but at times it was impossible not to be daunted by objectives I was regularly told were insurmountable because of our circumstances.

•      Unable to stay in our home, I left no stone unturned in my search for a house.
•     Unable to produce a satisfactory credit reference I located landlords who were prepared to accept character references
•     Unable to cover the heating costs of the only house available to me I obtained permission to take lodgers
•     Unable to fund my children’s school fees I swallowed my pride and went cap in hand to ask for bursaries

 And,

•          Unable to arrest HBOS’s relentless pursuit of my massive £217,000 mortgage shortfall, I approached the Financial Ombudsman Service to make a complaint.

As a result of my efforts,

•     My husband, my children and I have had five uninterrupted years in a vast, crumbling, family friendly farmhouse.
•     My landlord has, for the first time ever, enjoyed five years of uninterrupted rental income safe in the knowledge we would care for and make minor repairs to his crumbling pile.
•     My lodgers have enjoyed the comforts of living in a family home at a price they could afford.
•      My children have benefited from an independent education at a school which was struggling to maintain its numbers

And,

•      The Financial Ombudsman Service agreed, on two separate occasion, to adjudicate my case against HBOS

However, after five years of painstakingly working to rebuild our life, I have watched in horror as much of what I initially achieved has unravelled over the past six months;

•     A hand delivered Section 13 notice from our landlord’s solicitor dictates a 50%  increase in rent will be effective from 5 Dec and as a result of our inability to pay my family and I are facing homelessness again.
•     Finding any property via letting agents has proved hopeless as, five years on, they remain unable to put us forward without a satisfactory credit check
•     Full bursary funded independent education for my dyslexic son’s secondary education is unlikely to be forthcoming as it is improbable he will achieve the required 55% grade in his common entrance exam.

And,

•     After ten months of rebuilding my second HBOS case of complaint when the Financial Ombudsman Service mishandled my first submission, my adjudicator has finally replied. I have had to waited twelve whole weeks to hear;

“I would like to apologise for not responding to the previous emails you sent across or keeping you updated on your complaint...[but HBOS] has confirmed that it is unable to get hold of [their in house conveyance solicitors] Pathway Residential Property Lawyers. It has confirmed it has called the contact numbers it holds which have a recorded message stating the service is no longer in use. It has also been unable to find a direct website in relation to the business. It has written to them but it would appear that it is unlikely a response will be received. As such I am unconvinced that any further information will be able to be obtained to add as evidence to your complaint...[therefore] I feel it would be right for me to start my consideration of your complaint as it would appear that there is little further information that can be obtained” .

As a result of this experience I can only conclude exoneration for HBOS is the normal result of toothless regulatory apathy while negligent record keeping along with obstructive behaviour appear to be banking business practices intentionally designed to impair complaint. If this is indeed the case, it is little wonder Lloyds Bank and HBOS’ CEO Antonio Horta Osorio, against a back drop of wide spread public hardship, is happy to publicly proclaim they are “back to being a normal company” safe in the knowledge that those of us who are still suffering from the shocks and horrors of  the fallout from their actions continue to be overwhelmed however much we manage our expectations and tailor our goals.

Many of us are still;

•     Unable to stay in our homes.
•     Unable to produce satisfactory financial credit references
•     Unable to find adequately paid employment
•     Unable to cover our heating costs

    And,

•     Unable to arrest the relentless pursuit of fraudulent creditors by making a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

     American writer, associate editor of Fortune magazine and futurist Alvin Toffler once said, “Man 

     has a  limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is over whelmed, the capacity for the 

     future is shock” and having ridden and survived a five year holocaust of  brutal and unsolicited change            only to find myself no further forward, leaves me shocked, overwhelmed and a seemingly

     insurmountable distance from Antonio Horta Osorio’s “back to being normal”.

     This is too is simply unjust.

Platitudes and Placation

Financial Times Chief Economics Commentator, Martin Wolf once said, “The conclusion to be drawn from [the Bank of England’s executive director for Financial Stability Andy] Haldane's work is that an out-of-control financial sector is eating out the modern market economy from inside, just as the larva of the spider wasp eats out the host in which it has been laid” and with mounting evidence to support claims that the FSA have neither the stomach nor the inclination to prosecute banking criminality, the best that victims of the UK’s banking crisis can expect from reform is a ring side seat for an endless round of regulatory wrist slapping.

Placated with promises of integrity and more customer focused business models, the FSA have allowed the individuals within the banking fraternity (whose greed cost hundreds of thousands of UK residents their livelihoods along with their homes) to escape the consequences of their actions with little more than,

·        a smidgen of public humiliation,

·        a fraction of a single year’s bonus in fines 

·       and a marginally demeaning ban from working in the city

While retaining,

      ·        several very desirable residences,
      ·        a substantial asset based net worth
      ·        and very sizeable pensions

Despite amassing a great deal of this wealth by indulging in all sorts of elaborate chicanery-including the widespread abuse of structured investment vehicles, conduits, derivatives, securitizations and collateralized debt obligations, boost leverage, gaming the regulatory system and avoiding tax, the Peter Cummings(HBOS) and the Fred Goodwins (RBS) of this world are left to lick their meaningless wounds aggrieved at being singled out for FSA tokenism. In contrast, the victims of this banking plague of financial spider wasps are expected to suffer the blanket approach to asset stripping which followed the near collapse of our financial system and plunged the UK into four long years of economic crisis.

During this time,

       ·        UK home repossessions have averaged nearly 3000 a month

       ·        UK unemployment has risen to 2.53 million

       ·        And austerity led government cut backs in both the NHS and Benefits department continue to be hugely detrimental to the nations most vulnerable.

Yet with UK regulatory eyes seemingly fixed firmly on how best to help those who perpetrated a global financial crisis retain both their wealth, and in some cases their power without either party losing face, I fear there is little hope for those of us seeking sanctuary from the relentless pursuit of lenders who are intent on socializing their losses from the property crash they created.  It is, nevertheless, mildly encouraging to find limply legislated lip service has not been the only method by which some of the fraudulence of global banksters have been addressed.

In this month alone,

        ·        Former Anglo Irish Bank chairman and two of his senior executives are to be tried in a criminal court over banking irregularities which have cost the State 29 billion
.       ·        The United States Government has filed a fraud lawsuit against Bank of America Corporation alleging the bank cost taxpayers more than one billion in losses when they sold defective home loans to government backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
        ·        US home owners launched a class action against banks who repossessed their homes following the calculated use of Libor manipulation to inflate mortgage repayments and affect default.

Scottish astronomer, academic and computer scientist William Samson once said, “A writer lives in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes” and while I do not deny I am regularly in a state of astonishment over the behavior of the UK's financial regulators, I cannot help but wonder how, despite widespread evidence of banking fraud and continued public outrage, banksters are slipping affluently off the hook into retirement, with the vast majority of their spoils in tact, to enjoy a life of elitist comfort completely Scot-free.

It is certainly not a future their victims can anticipate and this is reason, I write.

Guilt and Weakness

German born theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein, once said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot more courage, to move in the opposite direction” however when it comes to regulating our errant bankers or taking them to task for their crimes, it appears genius and courage are not to be called on. I am certain it is because of this that my dealings with the Financial Ombudsman Service continue to make little progress.

Following a full review of my file, a process which took a further three weeks, I am now told,

·        The FOS do not accept they are guilty of giving an unresponsive HBOS countless opportunities to discard my case on jurisdiction grounds whilst simultaneously hounding me for instant replies in order to be “fair to the business”.

·        The FOS do not accept they are guilty of unnecessarily asking me to collate my case in detail, despite declining it on grounds of jurisdiction after weeks of preparatory work, nineteen months later

·        The FOS do not accept they are guilty of favouring HBOS despite a period of nine months with no progress from the time I lodged my over-valuation complaint

However, in complete contrast to the tone of the majority of their letter I am also told,

·        The FOS sincerely apologise for their lack of diligence with regard to securing an HBOS response to my over valuation complaint. 

Mildly encouraged by this minor step forward yet resigned to the inevitability of endless waiting, I can only conclude the FOS's lack of impetus in this instance is not merely oversight due to unprecedented levels of complaints but is instead an endemic reluctance to tackle the UK's bankers and an clear indication of their discomfort at the prospect of unearthing another bankster miss-selling (or rather sub-prime overselling) scandal.  For this reason it is no surprise to hear,

•        Royal Bank of Scotland feel justified in their lobbying for legislative changes to enable them to repossess properties with distressed mortgages more quickly
•        The FSA are happy to risk more subrime selling by formally relaxing capital and liquidity rules for UK banks
•         While Martin Wheatley believes widespread miss-selling is a far cry from theft

With mounting evidence to suggest economic reform, financial regulation and banking prosecutions will amount to nothing more substantial than an after dinner speech, it seems the new chairman of the British Bankers Association, Sir Nigel Wicks, is correct in saying “we must all take personal responsibility for the restoration of trust in banking”. His words could not ring truer now that it is abundantly clear the restoration of trust in our bankers is to have nothing to do with the genius of our regulators and has even less to do with the courage of our Financial Ombudsman Service.

Albert Einstein also said, “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character” and I suspect this is precisely what errant bankers are counting on to escape prosecution for their crimes. I hasten to add weakness of attitude and weakness of character is not what the Halifax Bank of Scotland or the Financial Ombudsman Service can expect to encounter in their dealings with me.

Business Worries

Eighteenth century English writer and printer Samuel Richardson once said, “Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity,” and while there is no doubt the calamitous circumstances of recent years have necessitated a certain amount of re-invention on my part, it has been the loss of my financial integrity which has caused me to suffer the most.

A little more than four years ago I was living the life of a stay at home mother of five children and wife of a successful property developer. We resided in a beautifully restored sixteenth century barn on the banks of the river Severn and enjoyed regular visits to the Costa del Sol where we stayed in our equally beautiful Spanish apartment.  Often hosting gatherings both at home and abroad for friends and family while organising and attending fund raising activities for the school, I endeavoured to be an upstanding and contributory member of our small community and a supportive silent partner in my husband’s business.

To my horror, I learnt the credit crunch of October 2008 was not just something which was happening to other people and quickly found being a victim of it meant losing our home, our business and our financial future. While errant bankers were using the sub prime mortgage market to prop up their balance sheets, my husband had, without my knowledge, endeavoured to prop up our own business by borrowing to the hilt. The subsequent and some would say calculated collapse of the property market along with the demise of our business bank Heritable not only meant we were unable to service our loans but we were without the means with which to repay our creditors. I was crippled with the shame from the demise of our financial integrity and made full disclosure of all future financial matters a condition of our marriage’s survival.

During the years which followed I have struggled to trust my husband despite guarantees he will never again exclude me from his decision making. Thankfully our lives, and my self esteem, have tentatively pieced themselves back together and gradually I have relaxed into some semblance of normality. Once again, I live in a beautiful house (albeit rented through friends and shared with lodgers), my children remain in independent schools (albeit through bursaries for which I have gone cap in hand to secure) and through the generosity of our family, we still visit the Costa del Sol from time to time. I have even started to organise and attend charitable events in an effort to once again be an upstanding and contributory member of the community. However, I also spend many a covert hour communicating with our creditors and their regulators and I continue to find tasks of this nature excruciatingly painful.

On the other hand, I am delighted to report that these days life is far from all bad. There are even moments of immense pride and pure joy. Only recently, for example, my eldest son, at the age of seventeen, secured a place at university to read English and Creative Writing only to discover, because of his young age, he would be unable to take up his place in hall without a parent present when collecting the keys. Thanks to the kindness of my older daughter who suggested she drive us, not only did this allow me to relax in the knowledge her company car’s satellite navigation would deliver us to our destination without out issue, but it also gave me a very welcome but all too rare chance to play my part of exceptionally proud mother while, for the first time in twenty five years, enjoying a fascinating afternoon’s sightseeing in London. It was unadulterated bliss.

Four years on from the onset of our personal financial crisis, I am very pleased to find our modest income, with the help of tax credits, continues to cover our outgoings and although my husband’s job with M & S is a menial one, it provides him the opportunity to study via the Open University. Without the worry of creditors hurling abuse at the door, over the phone or via the post I have become settled in a way I would have struggled to imagine in the days which followed my discovery of our true financial position. I have even begun to believe that one day our financial integrity may well be fully restored and allow us to lay to rest the ghosts.

However, this morning’s revelations have blown all thoughts of domestic bliss and hopes for a future of financial integrity to smithereens and I am consumed with fear for what may be to come because,

My husband tells me he has started a small business.

He has opened a bank account and made his first trade.

He tells me there is to be no borrowing and no stock holding.

He insists he will not give up his day job nor will he let this venture interfere with his studies.

He believes this is the only method in which to secure us a reasonable financial future.

He regrets he did not choose to tell me sooner but was concerned I might discourage him or it would cause me unnecessary worry.

He assures me he knows what he is doing.

He promises me everything will to be alright.

The trouble is.....

I’ve heard this all once before!

American actress, playwright and sex symbol Mae West once said, “People who are surprised easily need to be surprised more often” and I am most certainly guilty of being shocked to hear my husband, after eighteen years of marriage, four years of which were endured in the grips of an integrity stripping calamity, has now, without any mention or discussion, embarked upon another business venture. While I have no doubt he views my concerns for what amounts to little more than his opening a bank account as an over-reaction arising from my being over-sensitized to the consequences of debt, I unlike Mae West do not believe the solution to this is to be surprised more often.

Quite frankly I find the prospect of repeating the last four, however remote, nothing  short of terrifying.

Rainy Days and Lost Luggage

Self help writer Maya Angelou says, “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle rainy days, lost luggage and tangled Christmas lights” so I am pleased to disclose rainy days are a weather condition to which thirty four years of continuous parenting has not only supplied a ring side seat for many hours of wet suited, watery fun but they have also been the backdrop for numerous convivial gatherings in front of a roaring fire while inclement weather fills reservoirs in a single down pour.  Lost luggage has also been an integral part of my life and although I have not endured its inconvenience whilst in transit, five children, six grandchildren and a husband with short-term memory loss has meant I am never more than a whisper away from a panic filled enquiry as to the whereabouts of something vital. I find an un-flustered approach to the retracing of steps seldom disappoints but on the rare occasions it fails a plentiful supply of spares usually saves the day.

However, the task of tackling tangled Christmas lights could easily be a euphemism for my increasingly complicated battle with HBOS via the Financial Ombudsman’s Service. Not unlike its namesake, an inordinate amount of time is required along with a steely determination and an excellent pair of glasses with which to spot the intricacies of the task at hand. With this in mind I recently allocated my first child free day since the Easter holidays for the preparation of a response to the Financial Ombudsman Services latest letter in which they claim my HBOS complaint is outside their jurisdiction on the grounds of timescale.

 I have asked my adjudicator to consider the following points;

·        HBOS have neglected to provide a full and final response to any of my letters of complaint and for this reason should not be left to decide when my six month window of opportunity to complain commences.

·        When jurisdiction issues were raised by HBOS at outset (March 2011) I was invited to respond to their argument. On 27 April 2011 I replied with my defence (which the FOS acknowledged on 5 May) and I was then invited by the FOS on 15 May to proceed with the completion and return of their complaint form.

·        In the FOS’s letter of 15 March 2012 upholding HBOS’s jurisdiction objections, no mention is made of my correspondence of 27 April 2011or my subsequent letter of 16 June 2011 in which I thank the FOS for supporting my jurisdiction appeal.

·        When the jurisdiction issue was raised once again by the FOS on 21 July 2011, I wrote on 25 July 2011 to explain I believed it had already been dealt with in my letter of 17 April 2011. No further mention was made of jurisdiction issues until 14 December 2011despite three further FOS letters to me in the meantime.

·        Stating I was unaware of the six month deadline to complain is simply not true. I was only unaware that HBOS had already started the six month clock ticking because of the ambiguous nature of their letters.

And,

·        Withdrawing eligibility to an extension of time for my future responses to the FOS gives HBOS a huge and unfair advantage over me as lone complainant.

Safe in the knowledge my five page letter will be rocking several boats before the week is out, I am left to ponder the content of another HBOS response. My additional and separate FOS complaint sights HBOS’s over valuation of my home in May 2006 as pivotal to my family’s financial down fall and entirely responsible for the shortfall arising from the forced sale of my home in April 2009.  Having already waited two months for a reply to a letter HBOS claim they have never received, I have now discovered HBOS are to enjoy an additional two months in which to formulate their reply.

Sadly I have no reason to believe I will be hearing HBOS offer me anything like the words of Bank of America Chief Executive Officer, Brian T Moynihan who recently said,

“It's time to acknowledge that our Bank isn't working anymore—not just for the market, but for people, our real customers. We've paid $8.58 billion in relief to borrowers and $3.24 billion in fines. We face lawsuits and claims from citizens, companies, and state and local governments. There is even a petition with the Federal Reserve to break up our bank, adding yet more uncertainty to our position. Finally, we've found ourselves front-and-centre in the national foreclosure crisis, and deep in unpopular investments like coal, at a time when climate change is a growing societal concern.”

Instead, I am in no doubt that despite damning FSA reports, HBOS will be making no confessions nor will they have plans to shelter the individual from the economic down pour their actions have caused.  In contrast I suspect many of us will be losing much more than our luggage as a direct result of their “terrible corporate governance” and it will not only be me left untangling far in  excess of a few Christmas lights this year. It will be business as usual for HBOS as there is no incentive for them to behave otherwise and the Financial Ombudsman’s Service will remain characteristically ineffective in the wake of the ever increasing demand for justice through a complaints process that constantly creaks in protest to the unprecedented rise in the number of complaints.

Maya Angelou also said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story”... [and while]... “I can be changed by it I refuse to be reduced by it.” I am pleased to report that regardless of the rain, the lost luggage and the tangled Christmas lights, these remain my sentiments precisely!