Differences of Opinion

Graduate of the U.S. naval Academy, motivational speaker and author Denis Waitley once said, “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat” and while I cannot dispute my failure to bring anyone to account for falsifying my mortgage application continually provides me with an education, the delays incurred by misinformation, ignorance and regulatory belligerence have repeatedly buried me in despair.

Over the years I have spoken to countless fellow victims, whistleblowers, financial journalists, debt consultants, financial regulators and solicitors as well as a plethora of FB friends and twitter users, all of whom have generously shared their expertise. Each nugget of information they have so generously imparted has been carefully stored in my numerous lever arch files, saved on my computer and crammed into my head. As a result, both my head and my computer are now low on memory and my office cupboards are fit to burst.

Yet still, despite my best efforts, there has been nothing to report which warrants even the loosest interpretation of success.

I have been thwarted at almost every turn by the pomposity and arrogance of those working for the collections and mortgage departments at HBOS. Instead of thoroughly investigating my mortgage mis-selling claim they chose misinformation and an unyielding reluctance to share information (information which they are required by law to provide) to deflect and delay my progress and towards an individual reporting mortgage fraud, the Financial Conduct Authority exhibits disinterest and thinly veiled disdain. The Financial Ombudsman Service was equally ineffectual. Not only did they display repeated instances of bungling incompetence which cost me nigh on two years in delays but they actively condoned HBOS’ obstructive behaviour to withhold information which was pivotal to my success.

Since reporting the fraudulent content of my mortgage application to the police last year, I have been told to seek legal advice and, in an effort to secure this, I have presented my case to six different law firms. While my initial approaches have all generated sufficient interest to prompt a request for further information, to date each firm has come back to me with a variety of inaccurate reasons for not wishing to proceed. Discovering that my unsolicited education in mortgage mis-selling has already furnished me with a level of expertise which now exceeds that of some professionals, has not only leftme despondent but my repeated failures to secure legal representation have cost me even more time in delays.

As a result, I now have only eight short months left to make my case before it is deemed statute barred. 

With no money to fund it and only the Fee Free Advice of my Local CAB to rely upon, I had all but given up hope of finding someone to take my mis-selling case to court. Writing further posts to chart my repeated failures seemed pointless, especially when the sole purpose of starting my Life after Debt blog was to raise awareness of ongoing banking criminality, become better informed and increase fellow banking victim's chances of success. However, after seven long years of in depth investigation (while simultaneously dealing with HBOS’ bullyboys) and writing 184 blog posts about each painful step along the way, it seems my determination might have finally paid off.

Thanks to a fellow victim of HBOS who made contact with me after reading my Soulless and Searching post ,I have today received the Terms of Engagement from a firm of lawyers who not only believe my case has merit but wish to take instruction on a no win no fee basis.  As time is short, they have already sent my documentary evidence to a London barrister who specialises in financial cases and mis-selling and I, along with several other HBOS victims in a similar predicament, await his opinion. 

I am nothing short of delighted.

Denis Waitley also said, “[Failure] is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing” and those who know me will doubtless agree that saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing has never been one of my strong points. 

So, on the turn of a sixpence, I find my fingers are firmly crossed once again!

Wolves, Sheep and Regulators

Twice elected US president, Radical Republican and former union Army General, Hiram Ulysses Grant once said, "In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten and then he who continues to attack, wins" and after three months of a bank battling impasse in which the Bank of Scotland's debt collection have been eerily silent, I have reach the conclusion an armoury of evidence is my only hope of defence should they chose to launch another attack. Without it, I am nothing more than a sitting duck.

Keen to leave no stone unturned, I embarked on another quest for information. I sent,

• Another request to the mortgage broker who submitted my falsified application to the Bank of Scotland in March 2006, this time via a DSAR, along with formal notification I suspect them of fraud
• A DSAR to the mortgage broker’s network support organisation requesting any information they might have relating to disciplinary action taken against the broker during the application process of my mortgage and a letter advising them I have put Karrek on notice
• An application  to my contents insurance company making a request for legal advice with regard to whether or not my falsified application renders my contract with the Bank of Scotland void, legal representation in the event Bank of Scotland wish to dispute my findings through the courts and some telephone time with a legal representative to explore the merits of a negligence claim against the broker
• A formal request to the FCA under the Freedom of Information Act requesting all information pertaining to any disciplinary actions or formal investigations relating to the mortgage broker, their network support firm and the Bank of Scotland. I have also specifically requested any information which would shed light on why (according the BoS' screen notes) the mortgage broker was removed from the  Bank of Scotland’s panel of brokers during the processing of my mortgage application in March 2006.

Believing my requests could provide me with pivotal evidence to support my claim that both I and the Bank of Scotland have been victims of mortgage broker fraud, I have also sent,

•  An outline of my findings to the Devon and Cornwall Police and requested my case be kept open while I await further evidence.

Ten weeks have now passed and I have received,

•  No response from the broker to my DSAR
•  No response or even an acknowledgement from either the broker or their network support regarding my letters putting them on notice
• No file of  information from the brokers network support team on grounds that the DSAR I made only covers personal information and the data they hold is not personal to me
• No reply from my legal insurers

Thankfully I have received,

• No objection from the Devon and Cornwall Police to leaving  my case open while I collect and collate further evidence.

However, I have also received,

• A totally meaningless five page reply from the FCA which concludes with, “we can find no record of a relationship between Karrek Financial Management and the HBOS lending panel and  with regard to all other points of your request “to confirm or deny that we hold any information specifically relating to enforcement or disciplinary action against either ...[the broker] or [their network support provider] Openwork Ltd would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person or a firm (particularly the firms mentioned) and would, or would be likely to,  prejudice the exercise by the FCA of its functions under Financial services and Markets Act 2000 (“FSMA”). Therefore, we are unable to confirm or deny under section 43 (commercial interests) and section 31 (Law enforcement) of the Act whether or not we hold any information relating to action taken by us against these firms.” They further state, “the FCA also has a policy of not commenting publicly on whether or not it is investigating a particular individual or firm.

Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs and later 74^th  United States Secretary of the Treasury,  Henry Merritt “Hank” Paulson, Jr. once warned, “There is a very real danger that financial regulation will become a wolf in sheep's clothing” but if my own experiences are any measure, the complete reverse has proved to be much closer to the truth and, while some would still have us believe these very same regulators are the friends of the victims of banking crime, my six years long investigation into a Bank of  Scotland driven, broker implemented mortgage churning fraud would very much indicate otherwise.

With regulatory friends like these, who needs enemies?

Maltesers and Madmen

The Maltese physician, inventor, author of Six Thinking Hats and the man who coined the term “lateral thinking”, Edward de Bono, once said, “Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations” and this has certainly proved the case for me in my fruitless attempts to get the Bank of Scotland to write off a mortgage shortfall their irresponsible lending culture, their gross incompetence and their rapacious greed created.

Throughout the past six unhappy years I have spent countless hours explaining;

•  Neither my husband or I have anything more than a subsistence income with which to support our three children.
• Neither my husband or I have any capital with which to repay an alleged mortgage shortfall of £217,00,

And, as a result of my recent findings, further explained,

• Like me, HBOS has been a victim of broker mortgage fraud and, as a result of the falsifications which were submitted by the broker in an online application, their mortgage contract with my husband and I is not only void but cannot be enforced.

However, rather than respond to my repeated requests for documentary evidence to help support my case against the broker with the Cornish police, I have just returned from my much needed two week holiday with family to eight letters from the Bank of Scotland and their solicitors not only asking for payment in full but telling me;

•       “We understand that this account is not in dispute”
•    “There is no valid reason for it to remain unpaid”

And,

•        "We do not wish our request for payment “to have a detrimental impact on your personal finances”

Edward de Bono also said, “Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic” but after six years of flogging the HBOS dead horse I can only wonder...

WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE ON?

Socially Useless Banking Regulation

Ardent socialist, co-founder of the London School of economics, novelist and playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “Until the men of action clear out the talkers, we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none” and true to form, the talkers would have us believe austerity measures along with the reform of banking regulation have put both the heartache and the economic implications of the banking scandal firmly behind us.

Keen to keep us all abreast of the good news we are told;

•       “Britain is holding its nerve...the British economy is on the mend...[and]... we are going to make sure that everyone benefits from this recovery.” Chancellor George Osborne
•          “People need clarity over interest rates... to remove any uncertainty and to allow them to make economic decisions.” Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney
•        “Britain is seeing the green shoots of recovery...it is healing...and it is out of intensive care,"David Cameron’s spokesman to Reuters (on a daily basis) 
•      "Investors from around the world [are] investing in a British bank [and it] is a sign the British economy is turning a corner", George Osbourne after the sale of 6% of Lloyds bank to overseas investors.

However, for the  99% of us who occupy the real world, the picture remains significantly less rosy;

• The long overdue FSA/FCA investigative report into the collapse of HBOS is to be delayed until next year.
• “Economic recovery has been restricted to those at the top...it is not recovery for most people” Labour spokesman to Reuters 
• “A significant cohort of UK borrowers could experience financial difficulties if interest rates were to rise during a period of subdued income growth,” Financial Stability Report
•  Living standards in the UK are lower than they have been for a decade because inflation is still outstripping wage increases Reuters
•  Barclays and Lloyds have set aside a further 450 million to compensate people they have defrauded and Lloyds have used delaying tactics to encourage complainants to give up on their claims. 

In addition to these far from comforting social truths,  

• The recently published bi-annual Financial Stability Report states, the banks Financial Policy Committee relaxed the regulations for the UK’s big four lenders to allow them to "reduce their capital requirements by 20%"  and in so doing has provided them with a further 70 billion of cunningly disguised bailout.

Meanwhile, trapped between the legacy of widespread and hitherto unpunished banking avarice and the greed of my landlord, my family and I wait, without patience, for;

• HBOS to supply me with information I require to progress my case of complaint to the FOS
• The FOS to respond to my 1 August request that they ask HBOS to supply me with the information I have been awaiting for eight long months
• My landlord's builders to finish their noisy decimation of the Grade 2 listed property I have called home for the past five years

 And,

•  A letter from my landlord’s solicitor to advise me he wishes to increase my rent by a staggering 50% as a result of the installation of an extremely expensive, entirely unsolicited, sustainably fuelled heating system.

In October 2012, Any Haldene, Executive Director of Financial Stability and member of the Financial Policy Committee, made a speech to Occupy Economics to advocate socially useful banking. He said “concrete, practical proposals for change” would be delivered by way of banking reforms which addressed the five “c’s” (culture, capital, compensation, credit and competition) and further stated, “We know too that the costs of crises are felt disproportionately by the worst-off in society whose living standards tend to fall not just relatively but absolutely”. Yet, five arduous years on since my family and I lost our home, our livelihood and our financial futures, the talk continues while, for the 99%, the painful consequences of the crisis remain unchanged.

Stoic philosopher, inspirational master of equanimity and the last of the five good emperors of Rome, Marcus Aurelius, once said, “The guest at the lower end of the middle couch...who is digging in his big mouth with a toothpick is a fraud. He has no teeth” and while I wait, without mercy for the toothless Financial Ombudsman Service, to progress my miss selling complaint against HBOS, I can only conclude both the talkers, the bankers and the regulators are precisely the same.

Loss and Losses

Best known for his ironic and well plotted novels examining class, turn of the twentieth century English novelist Edward Morgan Forster once said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us” and in October 2008 this is precisely what my family and I were forced to do.

• I let go of my home when HBOS forced its sale
• I let go of our livelihood when my husband’s business bank went into administration,

And,

• I let go of my financial future when I discovered a million pounds worth of unsecured debt.

As a result of this,

• I let go of my pride in always having paid my way,
• I let go of the friends who could not endure the knowledge of our indebtedness and
• I let go of any hope of ever affecting a recovery.

In the years that followed I lost, my financial reputation, my hair and my confidence and the life which was waiting for me definitely was not the one I would ever have chosen.

Over the past three months alone I have also let go of,

• My car under the terms of voluntary surrender
• Our Spanish apartment now it has been seized by the bank and,
• A fair amount of my time now my eighty six year old mother has become increasingly dependent on me.

However, while “letting go” has naturally been fraught with grief for I life I no longer have, the life which was waiting for me has also delivered some unexpected rewards.

• The kindness shown by those who continue to come to my aid has been nothing short of astounding
• The written word in the form of my comments and my blog has not only given me access to expertise but provided me with the voice I longed for and,
• The product of my hard work, focus and bloody minded determination has not only encouraged infamous banking giants and their regulators to sit up and take notice but from time to time it has even made them squirm!

Retired four star general and American statesman Colin Luther Powell once said, “A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work” and although I continue to wait, without patience, for my un-redacted HBOS file there are I now days when I dare to dream all that will be required of me to let go of in the future is the mortgage shortfall debt these infamous banksters chose to create and saddle me with over the past five excruciating years.

This is the life I have planned for and this is the life I sincerely hope is waiting for me.

Truth and Punishment

Mahatma Gandhi, preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India once said, "Many people, especially ignorant people, punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you are right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth" and after receiving not one, but two heartless letters of HBOS hogwash this week it is clear that ignorance and a complete disregard for the truth is not just the prerogative of Gandhi’s British-ruled India.

It is now four and a half years since the sale fell though on our home and I was prompted to discuss with Halifax Bank of Scotland how best to avoid repossession. Deaf to my proposals to create a tenancy to cover mortgage payments, I embarked upon another fruitless year of communication with HBOS after they forced its sale. During this highly stressful period I enlisted the help of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau’s but, despite their best efforts, no amount of explanation could satisfy this infamous bank that we were in extreme financial difficulties or persuade them to arrest their pursuit of us. It is was only after I consulted a government funded debt management organisation in desperation that I discovered the mortgage on my home may well have been miss sold in the first place.

It has taken me a further three years, via the Financial Ombudsman Service, to persuade HBOS to investigate my complaint only to find their original offer of mortgage was based on both a fictitious purchase price and a fictitious date of purchase at the application stage. I was sure making HBOS aware of this discovery would illustrate, without question, that not only did my compliant have substance but both HBOS’s surveyor and the broker to whom they paid more than £4,000 for placing the mortgage with them, had over-valued my home at outset. Convinced I had finally secured HBOS’s attention, I was relieved to have taken my first, albeit small, step forward after so many unsuccessful years of trying to communicate. Here follows their reply and sadly nothing could have been further from the truth.

In HBOS’s first letter they state,

“The information that was provided in this [mortgage application form] was what was entered into our systems. We took this as being accurate in good faith, and based upon the valuation that took place during the application process, there was never any reason to think this was wrong...Having viewed your comments and our response, my previous letter...has provided you with our final conclusions...As you have reached the end of our internal complaints procedure, any further correspondence received will be placed on file as we do not feel that further communication with you will help resolve your complaint.”

In HBOS’s second letter (which arrived by the very same post) I am told “this matter” has now been put in the hands of their debt collectors.

Because of the scandalous actions of banks such as HBOS, the taxpayer has been saddled with,

•         An £850 billion bill to bail them out,
•     £1.1 trillion of potential liabilities
•     £560 billion of quantitative easing to rebuild balance sheets

Yet I who have lost my home, my livelihood and my financial future at their hands can not only expect to be pursued by them for a £217,000 shortfall for the foreseeable future, while they, in the face of evidence which clearly illustrates there has been serious wrong doing, choose to remain ignorant of the truth and punish me for having the audacity to speak out.

Harvey Fierstein, American actor, playwright, author and champion for gay civil rights once said, “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim and accept no one’s definition of your life,” and because of the way in which HBOS have continued to treat me, it is my plan to turn this day along with each and every other one into an opportunity to follow, without deviation, every single word of Mr Fierstein’s advice.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Fifteenth century Italian historian, politician, diplomat and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli once said, “There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor for others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless” and now I am finally in receipt of the Bank of Scotland full investigation into my overvaluation complaint it is clear I have most definitely had a close but useless encounter of the third kind.

It is a year since I first accused the Bank of Scotland, via the Financial Ombudsman Service,  of overvaluing my home in April 2006 at £925,00 and I have already received an unsolicited £500 for the distress their delay in investigating this matter have caused me. However I am now in receipt of their full report and in it the Bank of Scotland tell me, prior to instructing their surveyor “our systems were updated to show what the estimated value of the home was at the time. This shows that based on the original purchase price of £890,000 in 2004, the value of the home would have increased to £925,000 [in April 2006.] The valuation carried out for your mortgage agreed with the assessment that was entered into our systems during the application process.” 

  

After three more pages of “could haves, would haves” and “should haves” based entirely on this statement I am then told, “To compensate you for the delay it has taken to send this response to you, I have agreed to send you a cheque for £100”. This I have now also received with along a covering letter which states it is in “full and final settlement” of my complaint.

This was my reply,

“Dear [Bank of Scotland investigator],

Re; Bank of Scotland overvaluation complaint

Thank you for your letter dated 17 January 2013.

Unfortunately, I am unable to respond to any of the points you raise in your letter as the “original mortgage application notes that are held on file for this account” are inaccurate.

I purchased the Tithe Barn in 2000 for £250,000 and not in 2004 for £890,000 as stated in your letter.

You say that your “systems were updated to show what the estimated value of the home was at the time”.

I am assuming that the bank used a sophisticated piece of software to update your systems fed by data which you have gleaned from a number of sources.  Please supply copies and evidence of the data you used to “estimate” the value of my home in May 2006 at £925,000 based on a purchase price of £890,000 in 2004.  I am very disappointed, at this stage of the bank’s investigation, to find I am to experience yet further delays due to such fundamental inaccuracies.

You also state at the end of your letter that if I remain unhappy I have the option to contact the FOS as long as I do this within six months of the date of your letter.  Having previously fallen foul of the jurisdiction issue over time limits with the FOS and the Bank of Scotland I would request that you provide me with the information I have asked for within the next 14 days.  If you are unable to do this, I would further request the time limit be extended to the date of your next response to prevent it eating into my six months.  May I also ask you acknowledge receipt of this letter by return of post.

On another point, I have received your letter dated 17 January containing a cheque for £100 in “full and final settlement” of my complaint.  In your other letter of 17 January you state this cheque is “to compensate (me) for the delay it has taken to send this response to (me)”.  Could you please clarify if by accepting this cheque I would be forfeiting any legal rights I may have in the future to pursue this complaint further.  It is my understanding that this would indeed be the case.  I am very unhappy to have been put in this situation, particularly as I have not been given an opportunity to respond fully to your investigations or any time to argue my case.  My issues with the Bank of Scotland have stolen 4 years of my life and as a result my family has experienced huge financial loss.  To jeopardise my complaint with a cheque for £100 is very distressing.  I am returning the letter and attached cheque for the reasons stated above.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

[LAD]

cc Financial Ombudsman Service

Eighteenth century poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic Dr Samuel Johnson once said, “Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise” and as far as I can see those choosing to employ falsehoods and useless truths at the Bank of Scotland have simply not grasped that the purpose of my complaint is to not to finance the repairs on my car with compensation from their mistakes but instead to encourage them to address my miss-sold mortgage.

Now, once again, I await their reply.

All Sants' Day

Son in law of Islamic prophet Mohammed and first male convert to Islam, Ali ibn Abi Talib once said, “One who acquires power cannot avoid favouritism” and in spite of four years of public outrage over the impotence of the UK’s regulators and a tumultuous term at the helm of the Financial Services Authority, for former banker and recently retired chief executive of the FSA (2007-2012), these ancient words have proved wholly true.

Infamously accused by MP’s of being asleep at the wheel at the height of the UK’s bank bailouts, for Hector Sants 2012 has been a remarkably good year. With an annual pay package rumoured to be worth a comfortable three million pounds for a regulatory position at Barclays and a knighthood coming his way in the New Year it is extremely hard to marry his current good fortune with a track record which found him napping while the UK’s banksters reaped havoc with the lives of everyone but their own. As a direct result of the FSA’s negligence, countless people have lost their homes, their livelihoods and their financial futures and aside from those who have been tricked by the banks into purchasing PPI, the majority have received no restitution for losses which occurred because the FSA, under the guidance of Hector Sant, chose not to,

• Regulate responsibly
• Prosecute banking criminality
• Protect the banks customers

The banks Hector Sants regulated,

• Fraudulently sold unsuitable products to their customer to increase their profits
• Manipulated Libor rates to serve their own interests and camouflage their exposure to risk
• Disguised their flawed loan books and sold them as blue chip low risk investments to negate their losses
• Insured themselves against a property crash they knowingly created

Hector Sant did little to stop them. 

I can only concluded that the favours of the powerful heading Hector Sants' way over the coming months can only be for Hector Sants' services to banksters and not banking. Speaking as a victim of the notorious Halifax Bank of Scotland who has unsuccessfully fought for the last four years to secure the assistance of both the FSA and the FOS in my mortgage mis-selling case, the decision to honour individuals whose actions were pivotal to onset of the banking crisis only serves to illustrate how these failure continue to be rewarded leaving the rest of us to pay the price of the financial sector’s avarice.

Ali ibn Abu Talib also said,“As long as fortune is favouring you, your defects will remain covered” and if the New Years honours list is an accurate measure of policy, it seems papering over the the cracks remains very much the order of the day. 

Little wonder the banksters believe they are above the law.

Priceless Principals

Fifteenth century Parisian nobleman and moralist author Francois de la Rochefoucauld, once said, “The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it” and while the parliamentary commission on banking standards continue to haul HBOS’s infamous Lord Stevenson, Sir James Crosby and Andy Hornby over luke warm coals my own attentions have once again turned  to the lengthy process of compiling my overvaluation case against the Bank of Scotland.

Now in receipt of both the Financial Ombudsman Service's award of compensation for their mishandling of my case and their written assurances that my Bank of Scotland complaint will be, from now on, closely monitored throughout its journey towards a swift and fair conclusion,  I wrongly assumed it would be the Bank of Scotland themselves who would initially respond to my accusations of mis-selling. However, according to their most recent piece of correspondence it is to be Birmingham Midshires who are under instruction to take up the reins of my complaint and it is they who now wish me to outline my concerns and indicate to them what I would consider to be a favorable outcome.

A little shocked to find I am addressing yet another group of individuals in my quest for justice, I am even more surprised to discover that twenty one months after I first appealed to the FOS to investigate my complaint, and almost four years since I  originally complained to HBOS, it is not only my adversaries who have undergone a transformation but my own approach to our circumstances has altered too. Whereas once I would have been elated to receive a mere whisper of compassion and eternally grateful at the suggestion of a stay of execution, after four excruciating years in HBOS induced financial purgatory my broadening education of all things bankster leaves me with no plans to plead for debt forgiveness on compassionate grounds.  Instead I recently wrote the following in reply to Birmingham Midshires' request.

“You have asked me to give you an understanding of what a satisfactory outcome would be for me.  I have lost my home, my livelihood, my financial future and my health and because of HBOS’s actions I have been persecuted by debt collectors for four years.  This has resulted in PSTS for both my husband and I together with long standing depression, threats of suicide on my husband’s part and in my case the complete loss of every hair on my body.  My five children have had no alternative but to stand by and watch my husband and I crumble while HBOS have, for four very long years, showed no empathy, no understanding and would not even allow us to cover our mortgage payments with rental income to preserve our home for the future.  As you will now no doubt understand from what I have said, our losses are huge and have extended far beyond mere financial redress.

Given the above, what would you consider a ‘suitable outcome’?”

                           
Francoise de la Rochefoucauld also said, “The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve” and with this new found perspective firmly in mind I now await, with interest, Birmingham Midshires’ reply.

Literature, Legacies and Legislation

American industrialist and pioneer of the assembly line process Henry Ford once said, “Speculation is only a word covering the manipulation of prices instead of the supply of goods and services” and with an ever lengthening list of criminal practices assembling on the global doorsteps of our errant bankers, it is easy to believe dubious business initiatives embracing a sales rather than service culture have been the modus operandi by which the banking elite have manipulated their way into a life of excess and affluence.

Yet, after decades of the exploitation of financial deregulation to secure profits at any price, CBI chief John Crickland is keen to point out now is not the time to seek payback for all those who have fallen foul of this relentless reign of economic plundering.  Instead he believes we should focus on how best to prevent this legacy of banking fraudulence from coming home to roost. Not only is he calling for legislation to place time limits on claimants who have been miss sold PPI but he also believes people who have suffered Libor related losses should be legislatively discouraged from bringing cases against the culprits for fear the costs of compensation will be impossible to deliver.

However, seemingly unperturbed by either lobbyists worries or recent reports that sixty six billion pounds of bank bailout debt is unlikely ever to be repaid, some of the very same individuals who condoned both Libor manipulation and the miss selling of ever increasing numbers of financial products are still, with the endorsement of their regulators and the law, misrepresenting their forty billion pound toxic loan books to disguise their losses while enjoying sizable rewards for failure. Furthermore, despite austerity led postponement of UK retirement dates along with reduced pension incomes (current and future) for the majority, these morally challenged individuals are also to have a comfortable share of a combined pension fund amounting to in excess of one hundred and four million pounds. Fortunately for them a sum of this magnitude will provide individual annuities of several hundred thousand pounds of indexed retirement income per year.

In contrast, all I can show for the past four years of endless communication with a bank which has already been fined 3.5 million pounds for the miss handling of 45% of its complaints, is £500 in compensation from the Financial Ombudsman for their own miss handling of my case and a half page letter from HBOS advising me they are finally about to investigate my miss sold mortgage.

However, if regulators remain adamant it is both difficult and inappropriate to prosecute banksters for their crimes and legislation continues to find ways to favor them above me, in the absence of resorting to getting those responsible round the throat and attempting to throttle the life out of them, I suspect it is will prove increasingly necessary for me to tweak my game.

To this end I plan to,

• Contact Hilary Messer of RPW solicitors to explore the benefits of a mortgage miss selling class action
• Speak to a mortgage miss selling claims firm to discuss both my eligibility and how best to quantify loss

And

• Compile a list of "fictional" characters from the banking world on which to base my book.

Foundling father and third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson once said, “The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money” and despite enduring overwhelming frustration and a great deal of heartache at the hands of both the Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Financial Ombudsman Service, I must admit this last thought has left me feeling I know exactly what President Jefferson means.

Here's hoping some of my readers may be prepared to help me dish the dirt! 

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. 

 

Talk and Tokenism

Winston Churchill once said, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results” and as a long suffering victim of the ongoing banking crisis I wish those who chose to initiate the “pile it high” culture at the expense of the individual had seen fit to resist the opportunity to amass obscene personal wealth without moral regard, for fear of the wider economic consequences. 

Martin Wheatley would like us to believe flawed management run business models, policed by employees with a conflict of interest have been the major culprit when it comes to dangerously incentivised, inadequately trained banking staff miss-selling and miss-guiding financial customers. However, I struggle to comprehend how a culture favoring lucrative bonus structures for all those involved could be effectively implemented from anywhere but the very top. I suspect instead, it is at the giddiest of corporate heights, where the promise of multi million pound, profit linked remunerations which amount to hundreds of times the average salary that the greatest conflict to customer interest actually resides. As indicated by former HBOS director Peter Cummings, who now faces fines of £500,000 and a life time ban from the financial services industry for his part in the demise of HBOS, it is far more plausible that the decision to turn a blind eye to high risk strategies, product miss-selling and neglectful duty of care to clientele is made in the board room in front of sleepy regulators instead of residing in the domain of misguided sales staff or any single executive.

Following the FSA’s survey of twenty two financial institutions we are now assured the banks and their CEO’s are more than ready to embrace recommendations for an all encompassing change in operational culture. During the coming twelve months the new Financial Conduct Authority are entrusted to enforce and monitor these changes and Martin Wheatley insists this will mean banks will no longer be permitted to,

•         Sell unsuitable products to people, especially the vulnerable
•         Arrange the wrong mortgages because it costs people their homes
•         Put their own interests and incentives ahead of their customers
•        Employ business practices which are without integrity or unfair to customers

While I firmly believe Lloyds Banking Group (under whose skirts HBOS have hidden since 2008) will have an inordinate task ahead if Mr Wheatley’s guidelines are to be adhered to, if past performance remains a reasonable indicator of what to expect in the future, HBOS will find it nothing short of impossible because, over the last six years I know from personal experience they have,

•  Paid out almost £4,000 in introducer fees my own mortgage despite there being no financial evidence to support the repayments    
•  Overvalued our home to create the necessary headroom to facilitate the sale of their mortgage product
• Refused to re-negotiate our mortgage terms or show any of the government promised forbearance when we got into trouble, despite my husband’s health problems 
•  Omitted me from all discussions with regard to our mortgage, from outset, on the grounds it was my husband’s duty to keep me informed and not theirs
•  Created a massive mortgage shortfall by unnecessarily forcing a sale when I had secured a method of servicing the loan via rental income

And,

• Reputedly covered their own losses by placing “bets” against the property market in the knowledge their severely flawed lending portfolio was about to produce a massive downturn in property values.

 Aided and abetted by an all but a hands off attitude from both the regulators and the Financial Ombudsman Service, I am repeatedly advised that without proof of "intent", I will remain unable to recover losses caused by HBOS through legal channels as my damages are too remote. Nevertheless, it is my view the FSA’s findings that miss-sales were fueled by a strategy which employed irresponsible sales incentives is merely another example of cold blooded intent at the highest level.  HBOS profits were secured via the manipulation “with intent” of banking staff, manipulation “with intent” of the LIBOR rates and manipulation “with intent” of anything else which would provide a handsome return, regardless of the price paid by the individual and the global economy.

American president Franklin D Roosevelt once said, “In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people” and in view of this, I can only hope Martin Wheatley successfully delivers his plan to address the “knock on effects to customers” of banking malpractice because some of us, as a direct result of our banks actions, are already at down at rock bottom.

And for us, there is nowhere else to go.