Truth and Truman

Christof, the fictional allegory of the omnipotent programme maker in TheTruman  Show once said, “If his was more than just a vague ambition, if [Truman] was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him” and as I enter my sixth year of battling  with HBOS over my miss sold mortgage and its resulting £217,000 shortfall, I can not help but wonder  if  I too have unwittingly secured a  leading role in my own real life reality show. If only a little more effort and absolute determination was all it would take to unearth the truth and nothing but the whole truth about the underwriting of my HBOS mortgage.

To date, despite my best efforts, I am still without copies of  the mandatory compliance documents which should have accompanied the sale of my HBOS mortgage and all I have to show for my endeavours is yet another notch on my FOS complaints file as a result of the second complaint I have lodged, and won, against yet another biased and incompetent Financial Ombudsman adjudicator.  However, I am delighted to report that my absolute determination to confront and overturn the FOS’s unfair ruling has rewarded me with the following:

·         An investigation into the actions of the adjudicator who made the ruling in favour of HBOS without allowing me to submit further evidence

·         An apology from the FOS adjudicator for repeatedly ignoring my emails over a period of three months

·         A  retraction of the unfair FOS ruling of  November 2013

·         An extension until  31 January 2014  to allow me time to submit my additional evidence

With a traumatic year and an unwelcome house move firmly behind me it appears absolute determination in 2014 has afforded  me some more very welcome news. I am now in receipt of a very apologetic letter from HBOS stating a copy of my mortgage conveyance file  is finally on its way as well as notification from the Information Commissioner's Office advising me HBOS is to be investigated for failing to supply me with the compliance documentation  I requested under my DSAR a year ago.

Christof also said,  “I am The Creator - of a television show that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions” and while I can hardly describe my blog posts or my life as providing hope, joy or inspiration to millions, I, like the viewers of The Truman Show can’t help but be continually wondering, “How [and when] is it going to end?”

Here’s hoping 2014 turns out to be a happy and peaceful one for us all.

Right and Wrong

Leading romantic poet, army officer and popular spokesman for Roman Emperor Augustus Quintus Horatius Flaccus once said, “A portion of mankind takes pride in their vices and pursues their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong” and little illustrates this more effectively than the current relationship between the government, the banks, their regulators and their victims.

Paralysed by potential for further unfavourable economic consequence, our government remains malleable in the hands of our unprosecutable banksters.  Discretely exploring “The Bank Confiscation Scheme for UK and US Depositors” to cover future bank bailouts, their mantra is forgive and forget in the name of economic recovery and their course is set for redirecting both the blame and the costs of the crisis onto the shoulders of the most vulnerable. Insisting the bankers lucrative history of over-zealous incentivising is merely misguided rather than criminal , our politcians and regulators have used smoke and mirrors to conceal the full extent of the banksters crimes (many of which have yet to immerge) hoping they will pass unnoticed by the silent and unsuspecting majority.

Before taking up office, David Cameron famously said, "We all know, in our hearts, that as long as there is deep poverty living systematically side by side with great riches, we all remain the poorer for it" yet this week, as a direct result of banker bailouts, “an avalanche of benefit cuts will hit the same households over and over, with no official assessment of how far this £18bn reduction will send those who are already poor, into beggary”. In contrast, financial regulators repeatedly excusing corporate criminality on the governments instruction have failed to persuade those who reaped their illicit rewards, without prosecution, to employ moral fiber to tailor their future. As a result, a culture of entitlement for failure lives on amongst the very people whose avarice sentenced millions to a lifetime of hardship.

• Libor rigging at Barclays has not thwarted the 39 million pounds received in bonuses this year, 17.5 million of which is to be received by just nine individuals.
• The money laundering of 881 million dollars for the drug trade has not resulted in a single prosecution at HSBC or at any other bank for that matter.
• Neither has sleeping at the Financial Services Authority wheel cost chief executive officer Hector Sants his knighthood.

And nor have

• HBOS, the worst bank in the world, who have refused to answer all further correspondence from me, seen fit to furnish me with the information I ask of them via my Data Subject Access Request.

I have, however received word from my newly appointed Financial Ombudsman Service adjudicator who informs he is (at long last I might add) looking forward to securing a response to my HBOS miss selling case from...

Santander!?

Quintus Horatius Flaccus also said, “It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar - that I call an achievement” and if lip service to banking reform and the reams of meaningless correspondence I have regularly had the misfortune to receive from both Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Financial Ombudsman Service is anything to go by, 

I find that Quintus Horatius Flaccus is definitely not wrong!! 

Fat, Cats and the Cream

Albert Einstein once said, “Wire telegraph is like a very, very long cat, you pull its tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Radio operates in exactly the same way: you send signals here they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat” yet, despite almost one hundred years of technological advancement and much virtual cat tail pulling on my part I have, until this week, remained both impatient and noticeably void of any communication on the subject of my Halifax Bank of Scotland mortgage miss-selling case or my complaint sighting unfair practices within the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Regularly experiencing,firsthand, the lack of regulatory impetus which continues to halt the complaints progress for the individual, it has been no surprise to hear that not only are global financial reforms falling behind schedule but the larger banks have been given yet more time (some as late as 2019) to comply with new risk management regulation. In a climate where the UK's Treasury Select Committee are fearful that without their oversight the long awaited Financial Services Authority report into the collapse of HBOS may not otherwise be “fair and balanced” it is not difficult to imagine the individual will never be heard with the odds so grossly and unequally stacked against them.

Reports stating the UK’s corporate and banking elite are not only having a profitable and prosecution free recession but will also enjoy an average of 27% in pay increases this year only add to an over all sense of futility felt by those suffering the job losses and home repossessions as a direct result of widespread banking criminality and unlawful market manipulation. Far from reconciling the vast and ever increasing divide between those of us who have been forced to shoulder the consequences of economic terrorism and those who continue to turn it to their advantage, it is nigh on impossible to believe anyone but the cream of the FTSE elite can expect anything even close to economic justice or a comforting pre-Christmas windfall.

Further more, with the knowledge that some victims of PPI miss-selling waited almost two decades to secure redress for this multi billion pound act of corporately endorsed banking fraud while four long years having passed since Tony Boorman, the principal Financial Ombudsman in 2008, first told Channel Four several banks were under investigation for mortgage miss-selling, it has been nothing short of fanciful to hold hopes that endless hours of carefully researched communication will result in one individual’s anguish being either acknowledged or heard by anyone other than a few loyal FB friends and a modest number of Life after Debt Blog and Twitter followers.

However, this week nothing could be further from the truth. I am delighted to report, after years of fighting and writing, I have received,

• Two hundred and forty five page views, twenty four comments, seventeen additional followers along with fifteen retweets all as a result of my Platitudes and Placations post

•   A formal acknowledgement from the Financial Ombudsman Service stating that, after almost a whole year of waiting, my overvaluation complaint is finally being investigated by HBOS

And

• A lengthy letter from the FOS team manager which fully investigates their dealings with me, “sincerely apologizes” (twice) for their “failings” in the handling of my case and ask me to accept £500 by way of compensation for the “distress and inconvenience” I have suffered.

Albert Einstein also said, “Reality is a mere illusion” and despite the impression that countless hours dedicated to stating my case had seemingly fallen on deaf ears, in reality, my very, very, long communication cat has been howling its head off. I only wish those who caused the "distress and inconvenience" could be made to pick up the bill instead of the long suffering taxpayer.

Officials and Enforcements

Economist philosopher and author Friedrich August von Hayek once said, “Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality” and while evidence both at home and abroad continues to support widespread belief regulators will go to any lengths to uphold light touch enforcement in the financial sector, it has been no surprise to discover, after nineteen arduous months of corresponding, officially enforced inequality has also been the outcome of my Financial Ombudsman’s Service investigation.

When, in February 2011, the FSA originally advised me it was not within their remit to investigate individual reports of banking malpractice, it did not occur to me I would unsuccessfully struggle, for almost two years, to solicit the attention of the Financial Ombudsman Service. After repeated attempts to sweep my mortgage shortfall complaint under an HBOS favoring carpet via an "informal" investigation, I was encouraged by the FOS to "carefully consider" an HBOS offer of short term respite from debt collection pursuit. Had I agreed this would have permanently crippled any hope of my ever building a legal case.  It was at this stage it became abundantly clear the FOS's objective had very little to do with restitution for the individual and far more to do with damage limitation for HBOS.

After further investigation on my part it has now come to light that not only has my appointed Ombudsman upheld HBOS's claim that my case cannot proceed on the basis of jurisdiction, but to top it all I have also discovered the FOS have absolutely done nothing to progress the HBOS over valuation complaint I submitted to them more than eight months ago. Incensed at their blatant disregard for my numerous requests for their assistance, I sent the following letter to the Financial Ombudsman Service hoping it might galvanize them into action.

“Thank you for your letter dated 14 September 2012.

While I understand that this is your final decision on the issue of jurisdiction and am dismayed with the outcome, I am also very disappointed with the way in which I have been misled.  For over a year I have been led to believe that I had successfully established the exceptional circumstances as to why this complaint should go ahead.  Instead, I have been placed under the misapprehension that the jurisdiction issue was settled and my complaint ongoing.

I approached the FOS in March 2011 to initiate my complaint and was made aware of a possible jurisdiction issue in April 2011. However, on the 9 June 2011 I received acknowledgement from the FOS stating my case was to progress and replied, on the 16 June, saying how delighted I was that the jurisdiction issues had been resolved.  During the following months, and at your request, I spent an inordinate amount of time preparing my case and supplied you with detailed accounts of what happened.  I am now, 15 months later, quite frankly astounded to find the jurisdiction issue has not only come up again but been upheld in favour of the Bank of Scotland.  

I would very much appreciate an explanation as to how and why I was misled.

Secondly, I am more than a little confused about your statement:

“This final decision does not relate to the new issues raised by Mr and Mrs [Life After Debt] about an overvaluation of their property in May 2006.  They will need to raise this complaint with the bank first, before the FOS is able to consider it.”  

As no doubt you are aware from the file, I raised this complaint via [the FOS adjudicator] in February 2012, only to be notified two months later that the Bank of Scotland had insisted they had not received my complaint from [my FOS adjudicator].  [My FOS adjudicator] subsequently advised me in June 2012 she was submitting my complaint to the Bank of Scotland again. She told me she would pursue them for acknowledgement but I would have to wait at least another 6-8 weeks before they would deal with it.  I have, as instructed, continued to wait for a response from both yourselves and the Bank of Scotland only to receive your recommendation stating I need to raise this matter with the Bank of Scotland. This leaves me very perturbed once again. 

I would very much like an explanation.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that I have been told repeatedly, and on occasion, aggressively that it is unfair to expect the Bank of Scotland to wait for more than two weeks while I prepare my case despite the fact that I am doing the work while fulfilling my role as a mother of three children and have neither assistance and or expertise to call on to aid me.  However, the Bank of Scotland have repeatedly been given excessive amounts of time, amounting to a number of months on several occasions, to formulate their replies.  I do not understand why it is just the individual complainant that is pursued aggressively by the FOS for their replies and not the Bank of Scotland.  It feels very much like favoritism and I would like an explanation for this unequal treatment.

Yours sincerely

Mrs [Life After Debt]”

Thankfully this time my letter was immediately acknowledged but nevertheless I remain, as I have done for the past two years, perched uncomfortably on the edge of my debt fighting precipice waiting, once again, for the Financial Ombudsman Service to respond. While historian, author, media critic and blogger Eric Alterman says the "ability of the one percent to buy politicians and regulators is nothing new [and] inequality [is] a permanent part of our economic system" I know from past experience  the best I can expect for my endeavors is yet another substantial helping of officially enforced inequality cunningly disguised as a Financial Ombudmans Service reply. 

 

Real Life Revisted

American writer EB White once said, “If the world were merely seductive that would be easy. If it were merely challenging that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy it. This makes it hard to plan the day” and, having returned refreshed from a very welcome family holiday to the demanding tasks of the real world, I fully understand White's sentiments.

Torn between getting back to blogging, revisiting my duties of domestic goddess and taking up my role of debt fighter extraordinaire or simply enjoying more time with my family I have,

·        Washed, dried and relocated nothing short of eight loads of washing

·        Unpacked four suitcases and distributed the contents to their rightful owners.

·        Opened and replied to ten pieces of correspondence as well as sent four birthday cards complete with presents.

·        Read, answered, deleted or blocked 340 emails lurking in my inbox.

And,

·        Taken my soon to be eighty six year old mother to the garden centre, assessed a leak in her roof, chosen an outfit for her to wear at a christening and ordered a mirror she has need of from the internet.

In addition I have,

·        Expressed my discontent to our external decorators, who, while we were away, saw fit to remove our tower scaffolding from where it was stored, assemble it at the front of the house and leave it there unattended for two weeks, to provide both aid to potential intruders as well as a tempting acquisition for a passing thief.

·        Told my landlord I did not take kindly to having his finger wagged at me in fury when informing him it was his tradesmen who had seen fit to appropriate equipment belonging to us without permission.

·        Advised my seventeen year old son it is not only unacceptable to allow his friends to take and damage the prized possessions of his eleven year old brother in our absence but it is nothing short of outrageous to believe he can use my Amazon account (and my card details) to fund his purchase of six computer games without asking me.

·        Confiscated my new tenant’s electric fire because he saw fit to leave it on unattended in temperatures of 25 degrees and insisted he remove the tortoise I found roaming, free range in his bedroom, using my cream fitted carpet as its litter tray.

·        Secured a very apologetic response from the Spanish legal administrators for our apartment’s community for the cyber bullying I endured at the hands of their volunteer community president.

And,

·        Ignored yet another letter from Lloyds Banking Group which, after enquiring yet again if I wish all future correspondence to be in Braille, insists I settle the balance forthwith and completely ignores the fact that the account remains the subject of an ongoing Financial Ombudsman’s Complaint.

EB White also says, “One of the most consuming things in life is to have an enemy” and while I am determined not to let family life be consumed by my ongoing battle with the banks, now that domestic, administrative and family obligations are suitably attended to, I am, at last, at liberty to dedicate some time to improving the world.

Lloyds Banking Group, along with the infamous Halifax Bank of Scotland who continue to hide amongst the sumptuous skirt's of LLoyds executive elite, remains firmly in my sights!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Putting the hectic school routine behind me for what will amount to almost a month and consigning my HBOS battling files to a cupboard for a similar period, has meant I have finally been able to turn my attentions to preparations for our much anticipated family focused Christmas. However, being someone who has always enjoyed the pleasure of giving, Christmas continues to prove challenging on this front due to our much reduced financial circumstances. Taking solace in the middle eastern proverb that suggests, “If you have much, give your wealth and if you have little, give your heart” I have endeavoured to do the very best I can with the limited resources available to me by applying a completely different approach to our festive celebrations which makes good use of both my heart and my head.

In the past I would have purchased Christmas wreaths, garlands and table decorations to decorate my home and give to my friends. However this year, instead of parting with any hard earned cash in exchange for these wholesome signs of Christmas, I held a table decoration making lunch for a few of my friends and neighbours. Because foliage arrived with each guest and (courtesy of the M & S waste-sale) I was able to supply the receptacles for our floral masterpieces along with a light lunch, I was also able to create an abundance of decorative displays for no financial outlay.  In addition, my children were kept cheerfully and productively entertained by this hive of kitchen industry which  turned a thrift driven exercise into wonderfully social pre- Christmas event that all those who attended are keen to repeat next year. My home has never been better dressed and friends to whom I have gifted my hand made creations have been delighted with a caringly constructed illustration of just how much I value them.  

In the past I would have not only made a Christmas cake but I would also have bought only the best cuts of meat along with a variety of luxury Christmas produce to share with family and friends over the festive period. This year a close friend arrived mid December with a beautifully decorated Christmas cake she commissioned her daughter in law to make me as a gift and, instead of competing with the supermarket crowds, I have managed to ear mark and freeze M & S waste sale produce over the past few weeks for consumption during the festive period. By avoiding the madness of pre-Christmas shoppers,  not only have I had time to create homemade Christmas fair that has ensured all our  guests have been fed like Kings, but I have achieved this without any extra expense.

In the past I would have tried to fulfil the majority of the requests on my children’s lengthy Christmas lists and yet still regularly failed to deliver something I had not realised they had set their hearts on. This year just as I have done over the past two, I managed my children’s expectations by reminding them of our reduced circumstances in an effort to avoid disappointment.  I asked relatives to gift them money rather than presents and promised my children an opportunity to spend it in the January sales in ensure purchases of even greater value. This has left me free to buy five children and six grandchildren a few inexpensive trinkets I know they will enjoy and in so doing resulted in a happier and more balanced attitude to present giving all round.

And,

In the past I would have happily thrown several pounds at a time into the charitable collection buckets found on every corner during the run up to Christmas.  However, for three years consecutive years I have squirmed in discomfort at my inability to help the less fortunate in any way. Nevertheless, this year my husband and I received the most heart warming opportunity of all time and it gave us the chance to do something positive for those people who, unlike us, will not be sharing in a family focused Christmas this year. Thanks to the compassion of one M & S manager who, no doubt, was equally as disgusted my husband by the mountains of un-purchased fresh turkey he had been instructed to throw away, my husband was permitted to have a trolley full for our personal use. It was in this way we were able, at eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve, to redirect twenty of the thousands of M & S turkeys destined for disposal as compost, to the kitchens for the homeless via a friend.

Mother Teresa once said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people then feed just one.”

I am hoping, thanks to my husband’s efforts, a little humanitarian Christmas spirit and several Marks and Spencer’s turkeys, several hundred truly poverty stricken individuals far less fortunate that ourselves will benefit from a hot meal this Christmas.

Homes and Gardens

 

Knowing “a house is made of walls and beams” while “a home is made with love and dreams”, I guarantee our sixteenth century grade two listed barn most definitely fell into the latter.  From the moment we saw its derelict shell towering over unobstructed views of the countryside towards the river Severn, we knew it would make the perfect family home.

Over a ten year period we were diligent in our search for reclaimed materials to maintain its character and used locally grown green oak to restore its magnificent vaulted ceiling complete with mistral’s gallery.  With an enormous log burner at its heart to ensure our family was always warm, this lovingly crafted restoration project was my husband’s pride and joy and regularly left visitors gasping at both its beauty and location.

As my children grew old enough to enjoy their surroundings, they discovered our home made a wonderful back drop to the freedom that two acres of land and an abundance of local friends afforded them.  I, in turn, was delighted to finally have a home from which we could put down roots which also allowed us to bring up and school our children in a village community.  Being a developer’s wife had meant numerous house moves throughout the years as a means of growing my husband’s business so I happily embraced a more settled outlook and threw myself wholeheartedly into country life. Quickly making many friends led to our home becoming the venue for many wonderful gatherings and  it was often filled with the camaraderie and laughter of our guests.  

In October 2008 my perspective completely changed.

Discovering we were to be faced with repossession, I soon realised everything I had once considered my own fell into two categories neither of which had anything to do with whether one's property is merely a house or a wonderful family home. A threat of this nature instantly dictates that everything must be viewed either as items against which a mortgage is secured or items against which a mortgage is not. 

As the forced sale of our home gathered momentum, repossession became HBOS’s “hangman’s noose” in the eevnt we be tempted not to co-operate.  During this period I watched my husband carefully strip each and every mortgage free fixture from our home in the hope the harvested items could be sold or reused for our families benefit.  When it came to dismantling our children's enormous wooden climbing frame (which he had designed and built in our field) he endured the sub zero temperatures of one of the coldest Januarys on record. In spite of the adverse weather conditions he carefully removed each and every part of this structure and, piece by piece, transported it to our newly rented home. 

For nearly three years the pile of wooden planks representing all that remained of our beautiful sixteenth century masterpiece was left discarded and ignored. Grass and weeds grew up amongst what appeared to be nothing of value and our children all but forgot about their much loved climbing frame's very existence. Believing its presence was only an unpleasant reminder of “old oak beams and thwarted dreams” I accepted it was unlikely ever to be resurrected again.  

However this week, to the astonishment and delight of everyone, my husband announced his intention was to build a tree house. With a spring in his step and  a renewed vigour I have not witnessed in some time; he resurrected and transformed the remnants of our old climbing frame. Three full days and nearly four hundred screws later it has become a formidable play structure in the enormous sycamore tree at the bottom of our garden and all three of our children have been in excited attendance for every step of its construction. Having now completed this project I believe my husband has not only created another masterpiece but has also laid one last ghost to rest. 

I am told there is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury and the forced sale of our home along with the simultaneous demise of our business, our livelihood and our financial future is most definitely an injury from which recovery has proved extremely difficult. Nevertheless, a tree house rising from the ashes of our lost life has been a very therapeutic start on the road to recovery for us all.

 

Infiltrations

Having read that the Smurf’s have recently been seen on Wall Street opening the New York stock exchange, I am beginning to wonder if, far from being a new development, Smurf’s have in fact been quietly infiltrating our financial institutions for quite some.  If this is indeed the case, the meaningless correspondence I continue to receive from Lloyds Bank is perfectly understandable when one considers it may well have been written by a large blue fluffy creature with very little between its ears.

Amidst the comings and goings that go hand in hand with children at home for the summer holidays, it appears I am now be subjected to a Lloyds Banking Group “pincer action”. On the one hand Merrils Ede Solicitors are waiting like vigilantes to pounce in the hope that the Financial Ombudsman will throw me to back to these HBOS wolves, while on the other, Lloyds TSB’s credit card and small loans department are bludgeoning me to distraction with their stupidity. The frustration of getting nowhere in both directions at once is nothing short of infuriating and, as ever, threatens me with yet another migraine melt down.

The crux of the matter is this.

I and the CAB have only ever corresponded with Lloyds TSB to ask them to forgive my husband’s credit card debt and personal loan (amounting to approximately £20,000) on the grounds of an inability to pay, combined with compassionate reasons. Lloyds TSB have spent two years ignoring these letters and then, just over twelve months ago, invented a communication in which it was agreed a payment arrangement should be set up. I have no knowledge of making an arrangement with them of any kind and nor haas the CAB so have I repeatedly asked for the documentary evidence on which they have based this assumption.

A multitude of letters later and almost year on, Lloyds continue to fail to supply me with anything. My exhaustive efforts have managed to ascertain nothing more than their repeated confirmation that a payment arrangement has definitely been made. Today’s letter states, yet again, this is their final response and advises me to deal direct with their collection agents in the future. This is, I am told, customary with debts that are in default of a payment arrangement.

Stupidity of this magnitude has led me to believe this level of stupidity can only be the work of ungoverned Smurfs if Smurf history is to be believed.

In 1964 when the first of their adventures were being heard, Smurfs were experiencing a leadership struggle following the disappearance of Papa Smurf. Although two potential leaders were soon indentified the Smurf population quickly became disenchanted when trying to arrange a vote because Smurf’s, as a rule, prefer only to vote for themselves. The community continued to struggled between choosing one candidate who was intent on making empty promises and using demagogical tactics and another who was arrogant and opinionated. Order and productivity ground to a halt while battle broke out between the independent factions. Thankfully, after much discontent and disruption amongst the entire Smurf population, Papa Smurf returned to save the day immediately restoring harmony and industry in the Smurf village once again.

If my suspicions are correct, the reason my requests are being continually ignored is because they are falling on the ears of ungoverned Smurfs within the Lloyds Banking Group. If this is truly the situation, Papa Smurf must return to restore order and productivity amongst these Smurf dissenters as a matter of urgency. I believe his presence is imperative I am to have any hope of procuring some sense out of Lloyds Banking Group and the tax payer is to avoid paying the price of banking lunancy once again .

The Others

Knowing much of human life is lost in waiting, I appreciate I must not be tempted to rest on my laurels in anticipation of a response to yesterdays flurry of letter writing.  While day dreaming of exposing HBOS’s ongoing penchant for the persecution of the financially bereft I can only wonder at the sums the Lloyds Banking Group spend endeavouring to keep their public image sweet and promoting their wholesome “You first” and “For the journey” campaigns when in reality they appear to persecute their shortfall victims for sport. 

It appears the coffers are exceptionally well stocked when it comes to the HBOS and Lloyds TSB advertising budget. This a clear indicator of the extent to which their public image is of value to them. What's more, in recent years, the groups funding for advertising has substantially increased in an effort to protect, as well as enhance, their public profile and counterbalance the less than endearing headlines which have dogged them since the early days of the economic recession.  At a time when many businesses are being forced to tighten their belts and economic growth is made harder by increasingly stringent lending criteria, Lloyds TSB and HBOS “increased their advertising spend by “76% and 65% year on year respectively equating to a combined £82m,” spent on avertising according to More about Advertising’s March 2011 issue.

Regardless of exactly how many millions are spent on the marketing of this banking giant, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest to hear that the Lloyds Banking Group are prepared to shell out huge sums of money on business promotion and public awareness in order to maintain their market share.  Nor does it surprise me to hear them being accused of being “happy to poor money down the drain with digital marketing”.

Nevertheless, what continues to amaze me is how one department of this huge corporate machine is rewarded exceptionally well to do the vital job of keeping the Lloyds and HBOS name squeaky clean and at the forefront of every potential consumers mind, while another department, belonging to the very same Lloyds and HBOS corporation, are paid equally well to ride roughshod over the victims of an irresponsible HBOS culture without compassion or integrity risking public disfavour;

·        By denying them the opportunity to save their houses from repossession.

·        By declaring these same individuals do not qualify for debt counselling or even arrears notification because they are married women.

·        By insisting, due to past experience, the reason they have not bothered toddress either of the above is because most people in debt do not wish to talk to their creditors.

Surely someone at HBOS or the Lloyds Banking Group understands it is irrelevant whether £82.00 or 82 million pounds is spent on promoting a positive corporate image because it is completely wasted if HBOS letters such sexist and inprofessional statements reach the public domain, regardless of how much Antonio Horta Osorio talks of resilience in a difficult market, slimmed down balance sheets and improved customer service in his press releases?

They say the wise understand themselves while fools follow the reports of “others”. Believing Antonio Horta Osorio to be nobody’s fool, I cannot imagine he will be either happy or humorous when he discovers his efforts are being undermined by the actions and reports of the HBOS “others”.

Busy Bees

Still hoping that success comes to those who are too busy to go looking for it, I have been occupying myself with a number of widely varied tasks.  In the last twenty four hours I have,

·        Accepted delivery of three grandchildren for an indeterminate  period of time while my grown up daughter trains for a new job

·        Prepared, served and cleared up four meals for six people to eat “al fresco” while providing endless towels for mid meal swims in our paddling pool and refereeing numerous disputes

·        Arranged transport for my sixteen year old son to a youth hostel that, it now transpires, is two hundred and fifty miles away

·        Argued with said sixteen year old, who, having gone for a sleep over at a friends house, has arrived and discovered he has taken no money with him

·        Answered a phone call from a Gok’s fashion fix researcher who, having got my details from a neighbour, wishes to offer me and two friends a makeover, only to find the majority of my friends are running for cover at the very thought.

And,

·       Sent yesterdays blog, “All I need is you” to Antonio Horta Osorio at Lloyds Banking Group, James Quinn business editor of the Telegraph and Sharlene Goff retail banking correspondent for the Financial Times along with Ian Fraser's article about Lloyds sins of the past.

Here’s hoping they are not too busy to read them.

All I need Is You

It has annoyed me intensely to be repeatedly accused of “using delaying tactics” and “ignoring a problem which is not just going to go away” by HBOS’s henchwoman at Merrils Ede Solicitors.  It is a statement which could not be further from the truth. I have never enjoyed a disposition which allows me “a head in the sand” approach to anything.  Nor do I have the patience for delaying tactics.

Despite my best endeavours over the past three years, my HBOS trouble's have not only remained unresolved but I have been aggressively pursued by their solicitors for a shortfall which arose from their fire sale of my home. Racking my brains for a solution which would allow me to move on with my life while despondently sifting through the numerous letters both written and received from HBOS, I have concluded it is probably time to write one more, This is because, in my heart of hearts, I know full well the toothless Financial Ombudsman Service will do one of three things, 

• Sidestep the issues I have outlined in my complaint, 
• With-hold their opinion a on a technicality or
• Wriggle out of making any meaningful judgeme 

However strong my argument against HBOS is, I can not see the Financial Ombudsman’s Service setting a precedent which would open another set of misselling flood gates hot on the tail of the recent PPI ruling and, without a face that fits or a high profile case currently in litigation (and supported by a lengthy list of fellow victims) I still believe I am extremely unlikely to be heard. It is for this reason I have decided to give writing to Antonio Horta Osorio chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group another shot. I am, after all, one of “his dead” and I have been waiting without patience to be brought out “from under the drain cover” for a very, very long time.

I strongly suspect Mr Horta Osorio, if made fully aware of my case might well agree that spending more taxpayer and investor money chasing people like myself (who have been left penniless as a result of the banking crisis) for mortgage shortfalls which have already been proven to be unrecoverable, is not good business practice. My problem is not what to write but how to get my message in front of him. 

My previous attempts have repeatedly failed.

However, in the unlikely event that Mr Horta-Osorio's inner circle might finally allow my message to reach him, this is what I would say,

Dear Mr Horta-Osorio,

In October 2008, having previously been kept completely in the dark by my husband and having had no contact with HBOS until this time, I was informed by Dryden’s (HBOS' solicitors) of their plan to repossess my home.  I immediately contacted HBOS to discuss my options and informed them I had secured a tenant who was willing to sign an assured shorthold lease and pay £2,200 a month to rent our property for a three year period. By the time the HBOS' possession order was due to take effect, this sum not only covered the mortgage but would have provided a substantial contribution towards paying off the arrears.  However, HBOS flatly refused to accept this solution when we found ourselves without an income (as a consequence of the banking crisis and our Icelandic business banks collapse) insisting my proposal was made too late for them to consider. 

In November 2008 HBOS to us to court, secured an order for possession which came into effect in January 2009 and completed a forced sale on my home in April 2009.
They were aware from outset neither my husband or I had the means with which to pay any shortfall arising from the discounted sale yet we are now being pursued aggressively for a shortfall which was not only of HBOS' making but for funds they know full well we do not possess.

Furthermore, HBOS’s actions escalated an arrears problem of £27,000 (which I could have been resolved by my proposal) into an unrecoverable mortgage shortfall of £217,000. Despite this, I am now being hounded for this shortfall by HBOS' appointed debt collection solicitors Merrils Ede.  Both HBOS and Merrils Ede have repeatedly been told by both myself and the Citizens Advice Bureau that my husband’s income of £15,000 plus assorted state benefits is simply insufficient to service any of the £1,000,000 unsecured debt we were left with when our property development business failed in 2008.

Following the receipt of our financial evidence from the CAB, the Bank of Scotland has already very kindly offered to write off my husband’s Bank of Scotland credit card (amounting to £15,000) on compassionate grounds, but your  mortgage collections department say that a shortfall of £217,000 can never be written off  whatever our circumstances.  I cannot understanding the thinking behind this let alone work out a solution for demands which are simply beyond our means.

Over the last two and a half years I have been persistently harassed by Merrils Ede Solicitors on HBOS’s instruction. I can only assume our file has proved a means of milking the HBOS cash cow because Merrells Ede, like HBOS, know full well there is no financial resolution I can offer them. Merrils Ede have repeatedly advised me of your plans to issue legal proceedings towards bankruptcy “without further notice” which I can only see as another illustration of how happy they are to recommend the unnecessary spending of HBOS money when both I and the CAB have made it crystal clear we have no capital wealth to offer and no income with which to make a payment arrangement.

On previous occasions I have,

·   Written to your predecessors to explain our circumstances asking for a compassionate write-off in the light of our financial demise.  It has been repeatedly denied.

·   Asked why HBOS did not contact me about our arrears, nor sought to offer me any debt counselling advice or even include me in any conversations at either the inception of our mortgage or later when arrears became a problem. I was told that people in debt rarely want to talk to their creditors and because I am a married woman, they assumed my husband dealt with our finances.

·   And, I have repeatedly asked myself why I was not allowed to save my home and our financial future by renting out our property but I struggle to understand the logic behind an HBOS decision that turned £27,000 of arrears into a shortfall of £217,000.

When you took up the helm at Lloyds banking group this year you famously commissioned your executives to “bring out your dead” asking them to leave no stone unturned.  A “sense of humour failure” was promised if, in twelve months time, more skeletons were found in the Lloyds and HBOS closets. However, I and my family remain one of your concealed dead, festering on an HBOS desk where I lie in a purgatory which has not only put my life on hold but consists of repeated and relentless financial persecution for money I simply do not have.  I have remained in this position for nearly three excruciating years while those at the Lloyds Banking Group move on with their lives. I desperately need the luck of the Irish buy to let borrowers or perhaps the vision of HBOS funded businessman David Murray in order to secure a mortgage shortfall write off and free my family from the continued bullying of HBOS debt collection agents.

On the other hand, if this letter does ever reach you, all I may need is you.

Yours sincerely

Life after Debt

Brave New World

In order to limit the distress my sixteen year old son foresaw if he had to endure a family holiday without teenage companionship, I suggested he invite a friend from school to come too.  It was during a conversation with his friend, who plans to do a law degree, I discovered the Inland Revenue spend vast sums of money on legal cases involving people who find their tax bills a distressing infringement of their human rights.  Having been a self-employed 40% tax payer for the much of my working life I can  most definitely relate to finding a tax bill distressing but have to admit I have never considered it a violation of my human rights but merely the bane of the fortunate.

In the same way it would not occur to me to take the Inland Revenue to court on an issue of this nature, it did not occur to me, to seek human rights or equal opportunities advice when HBOS told me it was too late to save my home in October 2008.  I believe HBOS profited from a naivety on my part and when they decided to forego scruples, morals and decency in favour of seizing an opportunity to rail-road me out of my home in an effort to replenish their under capitalised coffers.Until recently, I  did not understand why my mortgage paying proposals fell on deaf HBOS ears. I have Stop HBOS campaigner Nicolette Turner (and victim of the HBOS Reading scandal) together with Ed Milliband’s recent speech on the feral elite to thank for my Eureka moment.  Their words have helped me see not only did I borrow too little to register above the radar for help but they have also enabled me to see I fell into financial difficulties too early to enjoy the benefit of government recommendations to lenders that followed, via the Ministry of Justice Pre-action Protocol in early 2009.

While I was looking to work with HBOS to reach a solution which worked for both of us, the HBOS executive were busily shouting from the roof tops “ it wasn’t me” to every accusation which came their way.  I believe the capital within my home became part of their hurried re-capitalisation plan which was supposed to sweep their recklessness towards risk management under the carpet and save them face along with their jobs. I can think of no other reason why my home saving proposals got me nowhere at a time when the media were declaring help was on its way in the form of government funding and FSA guidelines aimed at helping those caught in the credit crunch crossfire.Regrettably for me, our meritocratic culture encourages the celebration of the good fortune of the early bird without giving a second thought to the bad luck of the early worm. When it came to the forced sale of my home I fell foul of being one of the very early worms which was consumed by unbridled HBOS self interest.

When Ed Milliband recently said, “The powerful are very good at talking about the responsibilities of the powerless but they aren’t very good at looking at their own responsibilities,” he could have easily been referring to HBOS and the way they have continued to expect me to pay the price of their mistakes. Unaware of Franklin Roosevelt observations, “In our personal ambitions we are individualists but in our seeking of economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people”, Lloyds and HBOS have continued to offer victims of their greed nothing but contempt for the stressful HBOS created predicaments they find themselves in.

I can only hope the newly launched Public Jury Campaign provides  a definitive step in the right direction towards a brave new world which limits the power of " the cosy elite" because, again in the words of Roosevelt, as a rule,"men are moved by two levers, fear and self interest” and while “we have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals: we now know that is bad economics.”