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!

Pain and its Place

American road racing cyclist and seven times winner of the Tour de France Lance Armstrong once said, “Pain is temporary, it may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or even a year but eventually it will subside and something will take its place.  If I quit, however, it lasts forever” and despite a substantial helping of painfully damaging cyber bullying this week, giving up, although tempting, has never been an option.

In the last twenty four hours I have,

·        Sent three hundred and forty six emails explaining my hotmail account has not only been hacked but had my contact list hijacked as well.

·        Contacted Hotmail Abuse to report the distress I have endured at the hands of a cyber bully and supplied my tormentor’s message source code.

·        Spoken to the Headmaster at my children’s school to warn him of the potential for fallout from the offensive spam reaching both him and my children.

In addition I have,

·        Co-ordinated and ordered beverages to stock a bar for 150 people at the Friends Summer ball.

·        Compiled, commissioned and printed, 150 tickets, along with menus, bar lists and table names.

·        Encouraged, cajoled and begged inordinate numbers of parents, staff and hangers on to assist in the transforming of a speech day marquee into and tasteful venue for a summer ball.

·        Observed both  my older daughters and my mother try on every ball gown available on our high streets, dress agency rails and within the wardrobes of generous friends.

·        Altered and reworked a beautiful ball gown my thirteen year old daughter was given into something she is now happy with.

·        At no extra cost, completely redesigned and reworked a ball gown for myself which I originally paid the princely sum of £2.00 for in a sale.

I have also,

·        Written yet more letters to Lloyds Banking Group's debt collection agency explaining it is against regulatory guidelines to threaten court action and the instruction of doorstep collectors when a case is the subject of a Financial Ombudsman Service complaint.

·        Written to the previous Community President and the apartment complex administrators to point out sending abusive spam, which includes their own correspondence, to everyone on a debtors contact list is inappropriate behaviour for someone elected to hold this position

·        Scoured the Internet and picked the brains of anyone would listen for information on what constitutes cyber crime.

On top of this I have ,

·        Packed four suit cases for a ten day break which will start immediately after I've cleared the marque of all things associated with our Friends event

·        Cleaned the house and restocked the fridge for my seventeen year son who wishes to be left behind

·        Assembled mattresses and prepared bedding and for nine extra overnight guests who wish to crash at my house after the summer ball.

Although frenetic activity at this level has left me little time to read or write anything on the subject of Libor rate manipulation, Farepak victims or HBOS skulduggery, it has meant,

·        The arrangements are now finalised for the best attended fund raising summer ball the school has enjoyed in years.

·        All the women folk in my family will be resplendent in their affordable ball gowns regardless of the individuals respective personal budgets.

·        My husband, my youngest two children and I will be able to take up my father in laws generous “all expenses paid” offer of a holiday in his Spanish apartment 24 hours after the ball

And,

·        According to Hotmail, cyber bullying may actually have a consequence for those who choose to practise it.

While it is evident my One Angry Man will never appreciate I am without concern at being publically exposed as financially bereft, it is clear he is also unable to comprehend both I, and Hotmail Customer Services, wish to avoid judgemental and inappropriate comments hurting my children. However, my short lived but none the less excruciating discomfort has brought the very welcome support of friends, family and an ever increasing number of sympathetic Life After Debt readers while their encouragement has allowed me to hope that, one day, I will finally celebrate a financial future free from both the wrath of cyber bullies and the avarice of Lloyds and HBOS.

In the words of Lance Armstrong, “When you think about it, what other choice is there but hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or Fight Like Hell”.

I know which road I plan to take.

One Angry Man

Maya Angelou once said, I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel and this week, despite the obligations of my hitherto clandestine occupation as debt fighter extraordinaire, I am very much hoping this observation proves to be true.

When my world fell apart as a consequence of our financial demise in 2008, it took me two years before I could communicate coherently with anyone. For this reason I remained largely out of sight from all but my immediate family and a few very close friends. All my hair fell out, I lost several stone in wait and I spent every moment of every day consumed by the horror and shame of being in debt. Each and every hour that I wasn’t required to carry out my duties of mother and housewife, I spent explaining our dire circumstances over and over again to our creditors. At the time I was incapable of being anything but consumed by our predicament.

Time has been a great healer and although we are far from out of the woods, and entirely because of the endless patience and kindness of many, many people, I have gradually emerged from a tunnel of overwhelming stress into a life which is different but far from unpleasant. The dark days of repeated panic attacks at the arrival of the postman are a memory I rarely linger on and I am proud to have pieced together a family life which provides both love and security for my children despite the back drop of a million pounds of unrecoverable debt.

Every creditor has been informed of our position and with the exception of HBOS and Lloyds all debts have been written off or are in the process of being written off. Even our beautiful apartment in Spain is due to be forcibly sold when Bankia get round to completing the sale at which point, according to both my solicitor and the bank who holds the mortgage, our community fee arrears of 12,000 Euros are to be settled in full by the bank.

While on occasion the lack of assets and the knowledge that our income remains very small saddens me, any malaise seldom persists because our children are happy and thriving in a school where I continue to work with grateful diligence as Chairman of the Friends. Whilst the head and his wife have been keen to remind me I have created an atmosphere of warmth and enthusiasm at both school events and amongst the ever increasing number of volunteering committee members, I am rewarded in the knowledge I have made a contribution, albeit not a financial one, towards to my children's education.

Despite the ongoing frustrations of my Financial Ombudsman’s Service complaint with regard to my HBOS case, my role as chairman has enabled me to move my daily focus away from obsessing about debt and instead channelled my energies into making myself useful and in so doing I have re-acquired “a life”. My email contact list bears testament to this with its one hundred and seventy three contacts and anything up to thirty incoming emails a day. Only two short years ago I had no computer and no email account,  whereas today I communicate with everyone from my children’s friend’s parents, Friends committee members, Governors, teachers, service providers for our events, through to my five children and six grand children to name but a few.

However today, in spite of my relentless determintaion to secure a safe and happy family life for my children, the very foundations of my new found stability have been rocked. Following the discovery that my email account had been hacked and was sending a link containing a virus out to all those on my contact list, I emailed everyone to warn them not to open it. Included in my alert was the wealthy volunteer chairman of the community of our apartment. Unwillingly to accept that Spanish law dictates the arrears on our community fees will be paid in full when the bank takes possession, he has chosen to send an abusive and threatening email outling his disgust at our non payment of the community fees not only to me, but also to everyone on my contact list.

It is certainly true the kindest words in all the world are the unkind words not said” but because of the unkind words born out of this malicious man’s impatience for money, I am now faced with the fact that not only has everyone I know been served a large helping of our shamefully dirty washing, but my children, along with many of their friends, their friends parents and their teachers have too.

It is four years since I discovered the extent to which my husband had borrowed in an effort to save his property business and today my head once again hangs in shame while my heart bleeds for what my children may well face on Monday morning. I can only hope the recipients of this vicious hate mail might pause to remember how I have, during my time as chairman endeavoured to make them feel, before passing judgement on our position. Either way I can only assume my family and I will need a strong stomach over the coming months as, now he has access to my contact list, I cannot imagine this will be the only time this angry man will be making use of it.

The thought of this makes me feel physically sick.

The Powerless and Corruption

George Bernard Shaw, Irish play wright and founder of the London School of Eoconomics once said, “Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power" and while I am repeatedly told by the Financial Ombudsman Service unprecedented numbers of complaints are the reason I have not yet received a ruling on whether my HBOS complaint can proceed, it is clear the fault actually lies with unprecedented incidents of banking fraud and not, as bankers would have us believe, the audacity of their victims.

While all eyes are on Barclays fraudulent actions following the US and UK regulators levy of a £290 million fine for Libor rate manipulation, it has become abundantly clear CEO Bob Diamond was not wrong when he said “how people behave when they think no one is watching” has been at the heart of his banks profitability and risk management policies for many a year. With  the news that vast funds have been repeatedly and systematically skimmed by Barclays from a plethora of global financial manoeuvres spanning as much as five years, civil suits are likely to far outstrip existing compensation payouts which are already run into billions making a regulatory fine of £290 million pale into insignificance.

By way of an explanation, our regulataors tell us a wave of Libor fiddling during the 2008 financial crisis resulted from “senior management’s” concerns that Barclays would be perceived as struggling.  Add into this mix a conversation Diamond had with Paul Tucker, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, after which at least two Barclay’s managers believed falsely adjusting Libor rates had been agreed, one can only wonder why anyone thinks Chairman Marcus Angius’ resignation along with the sacking of fourteen Barclay’s traders has resolved anything let alone emptied the Barclays barrel of its rotten apples.

With the regulatory finger finally pointing firmly in the direction of twelve other banks for similar Libor fixing crimes it is no surprise to discover Lloyds Banking Group and HBOS are amongst those within the US regulators and FSA’s sights. However, while I doubt previously exhausted Lloyds CEO Antonio Horta Osorio anticipated “bringing out their dead” in the summer of 2011would give rise to further billions being claimed in compensation for rate fixing, it is now clear it will not just be my own case which will continue to fester on HBOS and FOS desks for weeks to come while the fall out from this latest banking fraud discovery is laid to rest.

It is said corruption is authority, plus monopoly, minus transparency and while auditors have snoozed and the UK government remain complicit in their indifference to bankers crimes I, along with millions of other victims of banking avarice are left to suffer the consequences and despite public outrage both at home and abroad, unsurprisingly No. 10 are happy to announce there is to be no retrospective action taken with regard to the banks as “we can only use the law as it is and as it stands”.  Sadly, as is the case in so many instances, the law insists the loss of my financial future is too remote for there to be any recourse.

Thirty fifth US president John F. Kennedy said, “Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance” and despite the best efforts of the US and the UK regulators it is common knowledge that while nobody is above the law, power regularly makes people invisible.

It is for this reason banking crime continues pay.

Conscientious Objections

American president Thomas Jefferson said, “All tyranny needs in order to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent” and while I wait, without patience, for a reply from the Halifax Bank of Scotland with regard to the overvaluation of my home, I continue to smart from the knowledge there are many people of good conscience who would prefer to accuse me of irresponsible borrowing rather than consider the unpalatable possibility their banks are participating in a reign of financial tyranny to feed elitist avarice from the modest means of the least fortunate.

While banking sins of the past continue to surface in the public domain and CEO’s like Stephen Hester of RBS admit their parents believe they already earn too much, recent reports reveal the world’s top bankers are set to enjoy a double digit increase to their remuneration this year, excluding bonuses.  Despite banking profits and share prices plummeting, the top fifteen anticipate as much as 12% will be added to their personal bottom line and Barclay’s Bob Diamond and Lloyds banking Group’s Antonio Horta Osario are but two of the lucky chief executives set to benefit. As this award comes hot on the tail of an unprecedented number of customer complaints, the huge toll of PPI compensation payouts, a well documented hard line approach to both in house redundancies and debt forgiveness for the vulnerable, one could easily say for many banking executives, there remains good reason to fiddle while the economy continues to burn.

In contrast, the impact of this hard nosed, self serving banking culture on the individual has been further revealed during an open high court hearing into the collapse of Christmas savings company Farepak.  However, this investigation has only served to illustrate there is little the law can to do to arrest banking tyranny at any level  as HBOS’s penchant for lining their own pockets at the expense of others has not only left the Farepak’s directors and their customers to suffer the consequences of HBOS's actions, but also proved that HBOS is adept at remaining beyond the grasp of the strong arm of the law.

In the case of Farepak the court was told “for a year, 116,400 of the country’s poorest families had been putting aside a little bit of cash, saving up for Christmas” only to be left with nothing because, rather than putting together a rescue plan to save the company from collapse or cutting their losses when the writing was on wall, HBOS insisted Farepak directors continue to collect customer’s monthly subscriptions in an effort to eliminate the bank’s exposure. While Mr Justice Peter Smith, not unlike FSA investigators earlier this year, condemned the actions of HBOS, he also “implored” them to redress the situation for Farepak’s customers on moral grounds as he was unable to find the transferring of HBOS losses onto the shoulder’s of Farepak’s customers in this way, illegal. Needless to say HBOS, who infamously referred to the revenue the Farepak customers were providing them as "Doris money", insist they made “entirely reasonable decisions” based on the information they had at the time.

Italian writer, statesmen and Florentine patriot Niccolo Machiavelli once said, “Good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals” yet despite the ongoing distress of those caught up in a global economic crisis some five hundred years later, there remains little evidence of morality or the law playing its part in bringing errant banking practises to heel. Left endlessly waiting in purgatory and with little hope of the law or morality coming to my rescue, if the Farepak case is anything to go by, it is my plan, with good conscience,

Never to remain silent on the matter.

Posts, Mail and Shots

Franklin D Roosevelt once said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough for those who have little” and while reports continue to illustrate the extent to which bankers avarice for their obscene levels of remuneration have infected and disabled moves towards regulatory change across the globe, I have embarked on a campaign to increase my readership in a bid to raise awareness of the impact their actions have had on the individual. With little more than a years experience as a writer and next to no knowledge of the Internet, social media sites or forums, this decision has taken me way beyond my comfort zone.

Over the past two weeks I have,

·        Signed up to, commented on and posted my blog on numerous articles relating to the economic recession.

·        Sent 562 tweets on my hitherto unused twitter account to a variety of recipients together with a link to my blog.

·        Applied to several different sites inviting writers to post pieces with a view to linking them to my blog

·        Explored Avatars, Gravatars, badges along with all things Google in order to improve the access to my blog

·        Posted new threads and links to my blog on Mumsnet in an effort to acquire information about the ongoing issues I have with HBOS.

Throughout this two week period, I have been filled with trepidation at the potential for abusive responses to my unsolicited “mail shot”.

I am delighted to be able to report the following.

I have,

·        Been invited to write a piece for Women Writers for September 2012

·        Acquired twenty one new and communicative followers on twitter

·        Heard from three separate individuals who are also suffering at the hands of HBOS

·        Tripled the number of people who have read my blog in previous months

·        Received three very supportive comments and expressions of encouragement with respect to my posts on Mumsnet

However, I have also received,

·        My first block, ever, from a former banker for “sending her spam”.

·        Had a post deleted from the Mumsnet legal section for inadvertently posting it where I should not have

And

·        Been subject to eight outraged and unsympathetic comments proclaiming my attitude to shortfall debt is naive, self indulgent and irresponsible.

Sincerely hoping the mood of these Mumsnet readers is not a reflection of the thinking woman or the public in general, this venomous outburst has left me wondering how I, and those like me, can hope to succeed in bringing about change in the attitude of the government, the financial regulators, and the banking elite if so many individuals are of the opinion the blame rests squarely with the very people who are struggling to keep their heads above water during this economic crisis, instead of the reckless and fraudulent risk-management strategies of the too big to fail banks who put them there.

English born American poet and dramatist W H Auden once said, “We are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for I don’t know” and after a week of this kind I can empathise with his viewpoint entirely.

Brave Hearts

American journalist and author Mignon McLaughlin once said, “Even cowards can endure hardship; only the brave can endure suspense” and yet for those locked in financial hardship as a result of the economic crisis, suspense has remained the regime of each and every day.  

For the individual, the cavalry never came and instead government talk has continued to prove cheap. Austerity measures have been relentless and the current penchant for saving the perpetrators of the financial crisis instead of the victims has left the very people who were responsible for economic pillaging obscenely rewarded and at liberty to defend their infinitely valuable contribution to a financial future they have completely obliterated for the rest of us.

Well versed in the unchecked practices of the banking fraternity at home in the UK, it is has proved unremarkable to discover the tentacles of corporate corruption have also been busy feathering elitist nests in Spain. However, with an estimated one hundred and twenty six billion dollar euro taxpayer funded bailout in the offing, the Catalan parliament has finally seen fit to set up a committee to investigate long standing allegations of banking malpractice. These claims in include multi million euro payoffs to senior banking executives just before their banks collapsed, “hundreds of millions of loans to executives, board members and their families” and 50% executive pay increases when profits were barely 7%. Arsenio Escolar, editor of 20 Minutos believes, “If we really knew the truth about Bankia and the other Cajas, the two big parties-the People’s party and the Socialists- would explode”.

Unsurprised to discover a great many actions under investigation are those of Bankia with whom I have held a now substantially underwater mortgage for the past eight years, I remain unsure if reported levels of financial fraud are pivotal to the  manner in which they have dealt with me or merely a product of it. Either way, I remained unable to fathom why Banca Caja which now trades as Bankia and is reputed to be desperately in need of funding, has made no effort to communicate with me for a very long time.

During the past four years they have:

• Refused to allocate the payments we made into our account to cover our mortgage 
• Ignored all my communications asking why
• Refused to allow me to sell our apartment to a very keen cash purchaser 
• Ignored all my purchasers efforts to progress this sale.  
• Refused to discuss interest only loan restructuring to make us tenanting our property viable in the long term
• Ignored all correspondence from all parties on the subject including solicitors 

In addition, I am reliably informed that not only will I not be pursued for the inevitable shortfall on the sale of our Spanish property when Bankia eventually get round to it, all outstanding bills relating to it (currently 12,000 euros and rising) will also be covered by the bank in accordance with Spanish property law.

While I am naturally delighted to enjoy one less instance of suspense about which I must be brave, I can only assume operating in this manner may well result in a one hundred and twenty six billion euro bailout proving vastly insufficient to secure the rescue of an economic money pit of this magnitude. Furthermore, despite widespread belief that money talks, I suspect the people of Spain are about to find out, as have those of us enduring the purgatory of the economic crisis elsewhere that no matter how large the bailout, all money will ever say to the individual is,

 “Good-bye.”