Sick and Tired

I recently read that representing an investment banker is not unlike being a street-sweeper at a parade. Not only does it involve watching an endless procession of horse’s arses but one is also responsible for clearing up the mess they make.  Now that Lloyds Banking Group’s Antonio Horta Osorio has recently stepped back from his role of Chief Executive Officer only eight months after his golden hello of £8.3 million; I cannot help but wonder whether the stress of spending his days clearing up the legacy of his predecessor’s mountainous piles of crap have resulted in his health’s undoing.

In spite of one person's suggestion it is the numerous letters of complaint I have sent for his personal attention that have finally pushed Mr Osorio over the edge, my gut feeling is this tennis playing, green tea drinking lawyer’s son has gone medically a-wall for reasons, whatever they may be, which have very little to do with my persecution at the hands of HBOS.  I do not doubt, however, it will be a great comfort for him to know, unlike the many individuals who have been suffering relentless levels of stress at the hands of Lloyds owned HBOS, he has another £15 million coming his way out of the 41% taxpayer owned banking coffers whether he does another days work at Lloyds or not.

Hermocratis once said, “An abundance of gold and silver, makes war, like other things, go smoothly” and I can only hope, in this case, “other things” don’t just apply to Mr Horta Osorio’s personal finances whilst on sick leave.  Without him at the helm, market confidence has already cost Lloyds share holders a £1 billion in fallen share values while a 21% drop in profits for the last quarter takes Lloyds Banking Group’s trading losses for the last nine months down to an unhealthy £3.9 billion.

So, while I wait, penniless and in moderate health to hear how my fourteen page letter of complaint to the Ombudsman’s service is received, it seems that Lloyds Banking Group also wait penniless and in moderate health for a favourable outcome to Horta Osorio’s untimely exodus.  In my case, however, having lost everything three years ago because of HBOS recklessness, I only have the potential for gain whilst it appears on this occasion it is the “ too big to fail” Lloyds Banking Group who have everything to lose.

Now there’s a thought.

Frustrating rewards

During my early days in the financial services industry I remember being told the level at which one is remunerated is, in general, influenced not only by the expertise of the individual concerned but also by the level of frustration  endured throughout their working day.

While patiently awaiting the imminent opening of a retail superstore this morning, I was amused to hear a gentleman behind me say they were ten seconds late in unlocking the doors.  Hearing these pedantic words prompted me to take stock of the ongoing delays my own fruitless efforts have encountered recently and left to me conclude the acquisition of any reward is not without its frustrations,

This week alone I have endeavoured to,

·        Deliver my ten year old son to a paint ball party only to have my car driven into while stationary

·        Go out for coffee with a friend only to have my windscreen shattered from a stone thrown up by a speeding police car

·        Tidy my sixteen year old son’s pit of a bedroom only to injure my back   

·        Wear the only remaining piece of gold jewellery I own only to lose it

And

·        Accept the offer of a garden shed and tumble dryer from my parents who lives two hundred miles away only to find a daily conversation with the courier is getting me nowhere.

Reluctant do anything for fear of seeing more of my well intentioned efforts unravel,  I took a moment to reflect on my frustrations and while doing so remembered that also during this week I have been,

·        Gifted a beautiful set of patio furniture from which I can enjoy the wonderful Indian summer that has come our way,

·        Accepted three invitations to dinner and lunch from friends

·        Received a “new to me” winter coat I couldn’t like more had I chosen and purchased it myself

·        Acquired two shelves of beautifully bound literary classics for my son to aid him in his English Literature degree next year

·        Received a link to a spoof website that lightened my mood immensely

And

·        Received an apologetic phone call from my overworked courier to make arrangements to collect and deliver the long awaited, and to date impossible to acquire, shed.

Knowing all too well success is a road that is always under construction this week’s frustrations have illustrated that if my ship doesn’t come in immediately, it isn’t always necessary to spend every last ounce of energy swimming out to meet it. Sometimes, a tide on the turn together with a fair wind will achieve some satisfying results and leave me, like my adjudicator from the Financial Ombudsman’s Service, with a few days off before returning to minor daily irritations, and her with two weeks holiday ahead of her before she has to address the questions I have posed about HBOS in my eight page letter .

Guilty Secrets

One hundred years ago Theodore Roosevelt said, “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people” and as I catch up on my reading with the blogs of journalist Ian Fraser and Stop HBOS campaigner Nicolette Turner, I am provided with yet more evidence to support Roosevelt’s statement.

It appears that Thames Valley Police’s plan to limit their enquiries into the HBOS Reading scandal means they will not be investigating any high level corporate involvement of former HBOS executives despite ongoing allegations of in house fraud at board level. While victims of the HBOS Reading scandal are naturally up in arms about this decision, ex- HBOS risk management executive and whistle-blower Paul Moore has expressed additional concerns at the way LLoyds Bank is responding to this investigation.

Moore said,” I have even been told by very reliable sources that Lloyds Banking Group is not voluntarily offering to help the police with their enquiries. If this is so, it is scandalous. This alleged fraud is a matter of extreme public importance and interest and it is vital that parliament keeps very close eye on how the police and the FSA are doing their jobs and working together with what is going on, through the Treasury Select Committee and the Justice Committee.”

As ever, when it comes to power and money, smoke and mirrors seem to be the first line of defense.  Learning that at least fifty five people have lost their livelihoods along with their companies, as a result of the dishonesty within HBOS, I can’t help wondering how I am ever going to harvest any success in my battle with Lloyds and HBOS myself.  Nicolette Turner and her fellow victims of the HBOS Reading fraud have fought for years with very little success in spite of police involvement and repeatedly lobbying both past and present governments for help.

Today I took two of my children for an eye test and when my ten year old son, always ready with an impromptu question, asked the optician,” What is the most disgusting thing you have ever seen?”  I found myself searching for a subject that would sit at the top of my own “most disgusting” leader board.  I concluded the following,

·        Self-indulgence to the detriment of others

·        Absence of integrity

·        Not taking responsibility for ones actions

In the words of Theodore Roosevelt’s niece Eleanor, “In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends and the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” As the wife of an individual whose business failed due to the economic climate and the simultaneous demise of both Heritable Bank and the property development market I am, according to HBOS, supposed to accept that I am jointly and severely liable for the choices my husband made even though HBOS aided my husband’s decision to keep me financially in the dark.

However, when it comes to Lloyds and HBOS executives, it is evident that they are totally unprepared to embrace their responsibilities with integrity and are pleading that they shouldn’t be held responsible because, allegedly, they were, like me, kept in the dark and unaware of what was going on within their bank. Even though this outrageous double standard is both elitist and downright unfair, there appears to be no governing body prepared to make these "untouchables" accountable. Because of this, social justice is unlikely ever to be attained and the greater good is destined to remain second place to the indulgences of the high ranking corporate individual.

      This I find truly disgusting.

The Emperor's New Clothes

On occasion I am asked why I exchanged a lucrative career in the Financial Services Industry for the life of a housewife and mother. I am uncomfortable when I am faced with no alternative but to explain as failure on any level does not sit well with me. Admitting that my health failed, albeit in a non life threatening way, when undiagnosed Hypothyroidism, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, twice weekly migraines, high blood pressure and Alopecia Totalis finally caught up with me at the age of forty is no exception. 

In 1998, on my GP's instructions, I walked away from a job which provided substantial returns in exchange for an unsustainable pace and instead I chose to spend the past twelve years living an "alternative" lifestyle in an effort to accommodate my physical shortcomings by way of a less stressful life. As a result my hair grew back, my blood pressure settled, I no longer fell asleep the moment I sat down and I was much happier knowing I had time to surcombe to bouts of ill health when they occurred.

In October 2008 this changed.

Forced by circumstance to once again endure unhealthily high levels of stress when I become a one woman debt fighting machine immediately highlighted my inadequacies. Within a matter of days it plunged me back into a regime of daily migraine, sudden weight loss, insomnia, panic attacks and chronic Alopecia. Managing these health issues while simultaneously trying acquire up to date knowledge of the financial services industry guidelines and regulations has made it all the more arduous to access my own rusty knowledge of the industry let alone retain it but despite the shackles of these infuriating limitations, I  remained committed to saving my family from the ongoing persecution of HBOS. To this end I have been exploring the world of finance via archived newspaper articles. During my research I came across the words of ex- HBOS risk management executive and whistleblower Paul Moore and was nothing short of astounded to discover just what HBOS had been up to.

Having already lost his job as a result of his attempts to warn the HBOS board their lending strategy was critically flawed, Mr Moore bravely ignored a gagging order to expose the relentlessly irresponsible behavior of his HBOS colleagues.  His revelations provided me with an extremely enlightening insight into how my husband was able secure the levels of borrowing he did and also explained the short-term financial motivation behind the board's endorsement of these economically dangerous lending policies. Coupled with the shockingly inadequate aspects of corporate and regulatory governance which permitted an HBOS sales culture specifically designed to harvest short term gain regardless of the cost to customers and shareholders to go unchecked, it became clear from what Moore was saying, it was not just our home and our financial future which had been steered towards the rocks by HBOS, but that of the economy as a whole.

Convinced even non bankers with no risk management expertise would recognize the pitfalls of lending “money to people who have no jobs, no provable income and no assets” Paul Moore firmly believes the current financial crisis has come about as a direct result of "an Emperor’s New Clothes attitude within HBOS”. He says anyone “not blinded by money, power and pride felt unable to speak up for fear of stepping out of line with the rest of the lemmings who were busy organizing themselves to run over the cliff edge” behind their sweet talking CEO. 

This was a complete revelation to me.

However, despite this newly acquired insight and amid widespread reports Lloyds/HBOS' new CEO Antonio Horta Osorio plans for "a new beginning", I am still left completely unable to comprehend why HBOS, now publicly exposed for their recklessness and under official investigation, has seen fit to instruct both their collections and their legal departments to hound my family for a £217,000 shortfall which they created, risking further scrutiny and investigation and yet more bad press.

An ancient Arabian proverb suggests, "There are many ways to recognize foolish behavior, anger without cause; speech without profit; change without progress; inquiry without object" and because HBOS and their henchmen continue to employ each and every one of these traits to hound and harass their victims for no logical reason, I can only conclude they remain committed to seeking counsel from fools in preference to heeding the wise words of their former head of corporate risk management, Paul Moore. 

This does not bode at all well for any of us.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Eighteenth century Irish statesman, author orator and political theorist Edmund Burke once said, "Bad things happen when good men do nothing" and I cannot help but wonder if over the last seventeen years of marriage my “doing nothing” was pivotal to our subsequent financial demise.  

When I retired from the financial services industry on grounds of ill health in 1998 I handed the bread-winning reins over to my husband, confident my financial reputation was safe in his hands.  At the time, I was half way through my pregnancy with our second child and suffering from exhaustion and chronic migraine brought on by over work, along with hypothyroidism and something which was later diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

At the age of forty and on the recommendation of my very supportive GP, I moved from a business life in the fast lane to one with my family and home at its center.  For the first two years we were supported by my accruals from the insurance industry and an income protection policy which paid out in the event of my ill health.  My husband was confident he could use the time provided by this short-term financial safety net to build a business using the capital we already had and in so doing take over the responsibility of providing for our family.  He showed me his figures for a ten year plan which involved selling our seven bedroom house together with my former matrimonial home to fund a “buy to let” portfolio which was to replace my income.  The balance from the sale was to provide seed money for a property development business he planned to run alongside the lettings business.  His research was extensive and his figures were both realistic and plausible. This supporting evidence, together with his track record for the successful refurbishment of two previous properties led me to believe I could relax into my role of housewife and mother for the first time in my adult life.  
  
Ten years on I was still basking in the knowledge my husband’s carefully constructed business plan had proved to be a successful one.  I was further encouraged to buy into the illusion of affluence when it was suggested we pay school fees well in advance so as to enjoy a discount. We enjoyed regular visits to our beautifully appointed apartment on the Costa Del Sol and commissioned a high quality finish for our sixteenth century grade two listed barn conversion which was to become our home. The sad and untimely demise my mother-in-law from Motor Neurone disease left my husband with additional capital of £200,000 in the summer of 2007 providing me with no reason to think we had any financial problems.

Within a year I discovered my husband was contemplating taking his own life with his shotgun and we were one million pounds in the red with not a single asset to our name.

When I exchanged my status as a business woman of integrity for the role of house wife and mother I had no reason to believe that, along with my financial integrity, I was giving up my right to make informed decisions about borrowings in my name.  Now, nearly three years on from the “Grand Opening,” I realize my husband made a permanently life changing decision when he risked my much valued reputation along without our home, our livelihood and our financial future and chose to withhold information from me about our joint borrowings. It is my belief he was suffering from mental health issues resulting from his unresolved grief following the long period of illness and the loss of two of his closest family members. Circumstances of which our lender and mortgage broker were both fully aware of at the time.

However, the Bank of Scotland had no such  excuse and they chose to remove my right to the information which could have saved my home and my financial reputation because I was married to the co- borrower. Instead, through unadulterated negligence, they joined forces with my unstable, grief stricken husband and set in motion a course of events which  I continue to pay the consequences of today.

Having made this enormous contribution to our financial demise the Bank of Scotland  now tell me it is I should who pick up the cost of their mistake. Before this act of gross negligence, I had a good reputation which was threatened by my husband’s bad judgement.  However, the ugly business practices of the Bank of Scotland have not only turned my family’s difficult circumstances into impossible ones, they have also relieved me of my financial reputation along with home and financial future and while it may well be true  bad things happen when good men do nothing, I have learned many things since finding myself in such unfortunate circumstances.  One of them is I am not, and never have been, comfortable with doing nothing.

These days I now find myself wondering what the going rate is for a reputation. To me it was priceless but it is almost certainly worth a lot more than a £217,000 shortfall.

Health wealth and happiness

I read recently "the true measure of a man is what he would do if he would never be caught” and having always operated with a totally different moral outlook myself, I struggle to comprehend a life code of this kind.  For me it has always been about whether or not a proposed action is beneficial for all those concerned and, for the last thirty three years, every one of my decisions has, by necessity, taken into account the impact it would have on my children.

In the early days, within the first few months of the Grand Opening, I was desperate to understand the motivating values on which my husband based the decisions which ultimately led to our family to its complete financial demise.   It was a chance meeting which gave me the first tiny insightful fragment into what may have happened to my husband’s decision making processes.

According to my source there are two completely separate elements to making every decision, namely the cerebral and the emotional. The emotional component works out the impact of a proposed actions success or failure while the cerebral component does the calculations necessary for its implementation and measures the chance of  its success. I am told neither process should rule the other but instead they should work in partnership to give a balance of risk verses return for every decision. 

It is clear to me  my husband’s withdrawal following the grief he suffered on diagnosis of his aunt, his mother and his brother from Motor Neurone disease, followed by their sad, painful and terrifying deaths only weeks apart, promoted an emotional shut down which had a catastrophic affect on my husband’s business acumen. However, whilst I can explain and understand these circumstances in a single, heart- broken man, I cannot for the life of me understand the logic of an almost identical decision making process which appears to have guided HBOS bankers down a similar path of ditruction. Surely when it comes to an corporate strategy, the chances of making responsible business decisions are improved by the numbers of those involved in rolling out these commercial initiatives. That is, of course, unless the banking industry has been brought to its knees by what the men at the top were prepared to do believing they would not be caught.

While  I can see irresponsible lending along with banking executive greed has undoubtedly brought our financial industry to its knees, sadly it is not the culprits of this crime who are destined to suffer the cost. Instead, it is my family’s health, wealth and happiness which appears to be the price they are only to happy to pay. French mathematician Blaise Pascal once said," Justice and power must be brought together so that whatever is powerful is just and whatever is just is powerful."

I live in hope.

Live and let die

I am told a person can survive almost anything........ except of course death and having recently returned from my seventy two year old aunt's funeral, it is clear, despite battling with ill health for over twenty years, she had indeed survived many things.

After the inevitably sad formal proceedings, family and friends were invited to her home of thirty years to enjoy afternoon tea in her meadow garden, view the beautiful watercolour illustrations she painted throughout her life and reacquaint ourselves with familiar faces from our formative years. Evidence of my aunt's knack for survival soon took centre stage as we gathered around the hundred foot oak tree which stood next to her cottage. Its blackened frame rose proud and charred over what remained of a greenhouse she had mistakenly set fire to earlier in the year. We concluded that, but for the help of nine firemen and a prevailing wind, she might well have been having her wake somewhat earlier!

As the afternoon wore on some of us reminisced about her cooking exploits which had, on occasion, resulted in exploding chocolate puddings and there was even more to laugh about when it came to her motorbike and side car antics. It was clear there was much to celebrate and enjoy at this impromptu family reunion on what turned out to be a beautiful spring day in a quaint Cambridgeshire village.

When proceedings came to a close, it was evident we had all taken substantial strides towards coming to terms with our loss. My cousins were left to get on with the nitty gritty of dismantling their mothers life while getting on with theirs, whereas I set off for the return home to the continued onslaught awaiting for me at the hands of Lloyds TSB and the Bank of Scotland.

During the journey back it struck me death, sad though it is for those left behind, is not necessarily the greatest loss in life. Instead, it is what we allow to die inside us while we live which is the real tragedy. My aunt had clearly lived her life fully and embraced every moment, to the very last. However, in contrast, I have allowed the Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB's unrelenting persecution of myself and my husband to regularly take away my love of life itself, reaping havoc with both my health and my relationship. If was me who had died rather than my aunt I am sure the mourners would not be laughing and celebrating my humour and zest for all things living but instead, would be lamenting the fact I have lived these past two and a half years as a one woman debt fighting machine locking horns day in day out with the Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB in a fruitless attempt to relay the hopelessness of our financial situation.

Losing sight of the fact Lloyd's TSB and the Bank of Scotland have not, and will never have a heart has cost me far more than monetary sums outstanding. However it is I who have permitted their bully boy tactics to seep into every crevice of my life and take over my existence. The passing of my aunt has brought home to me the simple fact one should never let adversity get in the way of life itself. Life, after all, is no rehearsal and no-one has ever asked for "I wish I had spent more time at the office" to be the words on their epitaph.

In the words of La Bruyere "death is a tragedy for those who feel" but can equally be "a comedy for those who think." I, like my aunt, have been capable of surviving a great many things and her passing has made me realise it is now time to stop feeling and start thinking. I believe it will prove far more fun and, who knows, may well result in some success!