Unequal Shares

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the US, once said, “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If [we] ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs,”  and if the 8,500 mortgage litigation cases against them are anything to go by, HBOS and Barclays are about to prove Jefferson’s words of warning  are correct.

A recent report warns banking giants Barclays and HBOS may well have to reimburse their customers for charges amounting to hundreds of millions. This is because HBOS’s and Barclays' shared appreciation mortgages, which offer an interest free capital sum in exchange for seventy-five percentage of the borrower’s equity, have harvested vast rewards for the bank at wholly excessive expense to the mortgagees. Some homes have appreciated by £300,000 in the 10 years since the loans were made meaning homeowners have had to pay more than £200,000 on loans as little as £25,000. These products were designed and targeted at low income customers who were quite often elderly and have proved doubly lucrative for the lenders because properties values were in the doldrums when many of these products were sold. This gave the banks the perfect window of opportunity to acquire a  substantial slice of an often vulnerable individual’s future equity for a minimal outlay throughout the depressed years of property growth during the 1990’s.

Hilary Messer of RWP solicitors is waiting for more people to come forward before she brings this proposed class action formally to the attention of HBOS, Barclays and the courts but it cannot have made it any easier for those Barclays shareholders aware of this pending lawsuit to know there could be a demand for a further 850 million pounds on top of the ongoing costs of the PPI claims and the impact of the government bailouts. Neither can it help to be made aware that less than half of Barclay’s chief executive Bob Diamond’s pay packet is to be growth related. Little wonder so many shareholders were vocal in their discontent to discover Bob Diamond is to enjoy a 2.7 million bonus on top of his 1.35 million salary in addition to the 5.7 million he has already received to cover his tax bill. However, it must have been nothing short of incendiary to find Barclays staff bonuses of 2.25 billion pounds in 2011 were triple the 730 million pounds paid out in dividends to share holders.

While David Cameron says the lack of economic recovery is, “very, very, disappointing” and Ed Milliband blames the present governments “catastrophic”  polices and lack of meaningful banking reform, it is clear from the actions of Barclays and HBOS they remain blissfully detached from the effect the first double dip recession we’ve had since the 1970’s and the impact it is having on the rest of us. Instead their executives continue to feather their own nests and, in the case of the Bank of Scotland, attempt to paper over the cracks with an advert created  by London-based advertising agency RKCR/Y&R and developed “to reassert traditional values”. It tells us, “You never know what is going to be round the corner, or what twists and turns life is going to take.” I beg to differ. I have always found past performance to be a reasonable indicator of what’s on the cards for the future and in the case of HBOS and Barclays it is clearly going to be more of the same. It is because of this my personal battle with LLoyds and HBOS is destined to be a long one as is, I suspect, any hope of economic recovery.

Thomas Jefferson also said, “It is error alone which needs the support of the government while truth can stand by itself” and sadly for us, it seems he’s right again.

Rainy Days and Lost Luggage

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

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

 I have asked my adjudicator to consider the following points;

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

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

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

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

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

And,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Capitalism and Punishment

Winston Churchill once said, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings: the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries” and, despite more than a fifty year interval, capitalist principals continue to force feed financial misery to the masses while our corporate and banking elite remain free to enjoy, and retain, the blessings of bailouts, rescue packages and sweet heart tax deals designed exclusively for their benefit. 
 
One might have thought embracing capitalism would provide the freedom to fail as well as the freedom to suceed but it appears the favoured few have remained remarkably unhampered by their failures and their bad decisions have instead achieved freedom from consequence via the government supported socialising of their losses.  In contrast I, not unlike the banks, but an individual with an unrecoverable deficit void of asset backing, continue to be on the receiving end of a “holier than thou” attitude towards a hand I have been dealt as a direct result of flawed banking risk management policies which saw many of the world’s largest banks run out of money in 2008.

Since then, with only the aid a few charitable hours of CAB time and the help of my trusty friend Christine, I have endeavoured to explain my impoverished circumstances to all our creditors. I have explained over and over again my husband’s vulnerable state of mind has resulted in a low paid job which leaves us nothing to offer towards the repayment of our million pound deficit and repeatedly described the enormous strain constant requests for money have had on our health, our marriage and our children’s family life. Our creditors should be in no doubt that their balances are unrecoverable, not least, because each and every letter has been supported with both financial and medical evidence.

For the past three and a half years I have borne the anxiety of our ordeals alone. I have done this in the knowledge that suicide was never far from my husband’s mind when the burden was his.  Compelled to do everything within my power to prevent my youngest three children enduring the loss of a father in an identical manner to that which their older sisters suffered more than twenty years ago I have, inch by inch, with the help of family, friends and nothing short of huge personal resolve, pieced together a modest lifestyle and a supportive family environment against all the odds.

Year in and year out I have dutifully and covertly prepared financial statements and medical reports for our creditor’s perusal far from sight of my husband’s glancing eye. With each creditors update I always enclose an appeal for a compassionate write off in the light of our unchanged circumstances. This year, however, there has been one fundamental difference to the content of this message of misery because, to my immense joy, not to mention unbridled relief, our most recent medical report states my husband is no longer contemplating taking his own life.

But,

Despite the obvious benefits of this news to me and my children, the Financial Ombudsman’s Service now tell me it is precisely because of the improvement in my husband’s health that Lloyds TSB are now unwilling to consider debt forgiveness at all. After three long years of living with the fear of an intolerable outcome, I am now told Lloyds TSB are looking for a less uplifting change in my husband’s health to be able to reconsidered my family and I for a share in the blessings that came only their way in recent years and not mine.

Unlike Lloyds TSB’s own chief executive, Antonio Horta Osorio, it appears I am destined to enjoy no respite from debt fighting stress. There will be no government bailouts for me nor will there be time off to catch up on my disturbed and troubled sleep. It appears the only hope of freedom from the misery of capitalism’s failures for me is in the unpalatable event of my husband’s demise.

American philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you are prepared to exchange for it”, and I was recently shocked to hear that in China a seventeen year old boy’s kidney was the going rate of exchange for an ipad and an iphone.  I am, however, nothing short of astounded to discover that in the UK, the going rate of exchange for £25,000 of unsecured Lloyds credit card debt is no less than the life of a forty six year old family man. Sadly, I cannot see any amount of tightening of the regulatory screws will ever address this.

Debt Sentences

If Albert Einstein once thought our technology exceeded our humanity, I can only imagine what he would say of our banking culture today.  This week alone I have read an open letter of resignation from a Goldman Sachs executive director speaking of toxic investment practises along with an ex banker's declaration stating his “mildly revolting” earnings pale into insignificance when compared with the current “completely obscene” remunerations of his untalented former colleagues.  In these circumstancest is not difficult to conclude a bland, mediocre man at the helm of the FSA has been essential to ensure this unregulated reign of economic terror has continued for as long as it has.

On hearing these revelations from within the financial sector it has been no surprise to also hear the FSA’s lengthy and expensive investigation into the Bank of Scotland has finally confirmed precisely what so many of us already knew via a government commissioned report which exposes gross misconduct on the part of the Bank of Scotland’s board of directors. At long last the way has been paved for a much overdue wave of criminal prosecutions against the too big to fail perpitraitors of these economic crimes.

Yet, despite evidence of banking fraud finally reaching the public domain, I am still facing a fight to obtain a full Financial Ombudsman’s investigation in to my own case because this very same infamous banking giant has chosen to make use of an FSA jurisdiction clause to thwart further assessment of my complaint. This clause dictates an individual has only a six months to bring a case to the Financial Ombudsman’s Service while, in contrast, the Bank of Scotland have jurisdiction for twelve years to pursue me for a debt they have both created and, despite their denials, continued to correspond with me about for three years.

It has also come to light that if I sign to accept their jurasdiction arguement and agree to their “goodwill” offer to remove Merrels Ede solicitors from my case giving me eighteen months respite from their pursuit, I could well be acting to my detriment in more ways than one. Tempting though it is to obtain this guarantee from the Bank of Scotland, it is my belief signing an agreement of this nature will in itself be an admission of my responsibility for a debt I have always believed the Bank of Scotland created and not me. Furthermore, not only will my signature amount to an admission of this liability but it will also re-calibrate the twelve year clock from the day I put my mark on the Bank of Scotland's document and  in so doing extend their jurisdication for my pursuit by another three years. At present I stand three years into this debt sentence.

Equally infuriating is the fact that the Bank of Scotland are to not to receive so much as a slap on the wrist from the FOS for setting their brutish debt collectors  on me, because, in spite of being in receipt of more than twenty letters from myself and the CAB explaining, in detail, my reduced financial circumstances, the FOS are happy to believe the Bank of Scotland were not fully aware of my position. It is said banks who have been the subject of bailouts are continuing to prove the economic theory of moral hazard true in that those who go unpunished because of  government rescue packages continue to make the same mistakes. If my case is anything to go by, the Bank of Scotland are no exception to this rule and are now, more than ever, keen to lay the blame firmly at the door of the individual while using every rouse they can to wriggle out of their moral obligations to the victims of their greedy, self actuating behaviour.

So, as the school holidays approach and my case remains unresolved, I am forced once again, to negotiate with a very disgruntled Financial Ombudsman’s adjudicator who never fails to go to great lengths to be more than fair to my gigantic adversary. Explaining my desperate need for unencumbered child free time to give my case the attention it deserves, I have (thankfully) secured her reluctant consent for an extension to her deadline. This will give me a much needed opportunity to take advice and pursue some FSA technicalities of my own. However, I am told the price I have paid for this opportunity is I will never secure this kind of consideration from her again.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man” and despite recommendations from many who know me, along with a fair few from those who don’t, it seems acting beyond the reason of others is the only way left for me to secure progress towards a debt free life for my family.

But,

Thanks to my FOS extension, I now have four debt fighting free weeks to spend with my children and in the words of the reggae band playing outside the Radio Four Workshop for script writers I went to this weekend, I say to all those who have expressed concern for me this week,

“Don’t worry, be happy, every little thing is going to be alright!”

...and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Bob Marley is right.

Help and the Aged

Economist Thomas Sowell said, “You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing” and realising procedural bureaucracy has taken its toll on me this week, I made the decision to redressed the situation with a much needed of a change of scene.

Making my eighty five year old mother my first port of call, I suggested we take a trip into our small market town and, grateful of some quality time together, she was not difficult to persuade. Beautifully presented in an outfit she would have normally kept for best, we set off at a leisurely pace along the high street. Frail with age but still game, my mother clung trustingly to my arm as we negotiated uneven pavements and headed for her favourite supplier of cappuccino and custard pies.

Mother, intent on imparting the finer details of all she had encountered since my visit a few days previously, did not notice the man ahead blocking our progress. Neither did she comment on the scooter he sat astride mid pavement. Scruffy in appearance, lopsided of face and missing an eye there was no escaping the driver’s attentions and I braced myself for an unpredictable encounter while negotiating the dangers of a dilapidated scooter that was nothing short of a health hazard.

Choosing not to step out into the road and instead risking the jagged edges of his vehicle I drew close to the man in question but with eyes fixed firmly at ground level in the interest of my mother’s ankles.  Hoping for bland indifference but braced for some level of abuse for squeezing past him rather going round, I was totally unprepared for what happened.

Ancient and broken he leaned into me and whispered as we passed, “I think you are really beautiful” and then, just loud enough for my mother to hear he said, “and I think your sister is too!”

Seeing my mother melt into gleeful revelry at the thought that someone should think we were sisters while in receipt of the first pass either of us had enjoyed in years, was not only the perfect non bureaucratic outcome for our day but most definitely a highlight of my mother’s eighty-fifth year.  What’s more the flirtatious devilment of an aged, invalided man proved a keen reminder that, more than anything else, attitude determines whether difficult undertakings have successful outcomes. This lesson was most definitely a ready remedy for me at the end of what has proved to be very taxing HBOS fighting week.

Mice and men

US attorney Robert Francis Kennedy said, “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.  Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope” and it is because of the support of other HBOS victims together with the encouragement of my blog followers and not least the help of my special friend Chris I have continued, day after day and now, year after year, to summon the courage to engage in an ongoing battle with HBOS. I do this with the express hope of securing a just and dignified solution for a problem HBOS’s irresponsible policies and negligent procedures created and I do this on behalf of the insignificant individual.

After two years of fruitlessly communicating our position with both HBOS themselves followed by a further year of attempting to do the same with their solicitors Merrils Ede, all I have received so far is endless persecution and, more recently, an offer of eighteen months respite on the grounds that HBOS were not fully aware of my financial position and health issues previously.

Now, after nearly twelve months in their hands, I have heard from a very disconcerted team leader at the Financial Ombudsman’s Service, that HBOS, on hearing my complaint is heading for a formal investigation with the Ombudsman himself and despite expectations to the contrary, have refused to allow my case to progress on grounds of jurisdiction. At this late stage HBOS, in full knowledge of both our health issues and our unrecoverable financial position, wish to argue my case is invalid on the basis of timescale.
 

I have repeatedly been told by the Financial Ombudsman’s Service their position is always neutral but in the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, “If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. Speaking as the insignificant mouse, I can only hope that ultimately a higher court exists than that of bureaucratic justice and wait anxiously to see if it is the Financial Ombudsman’s court of conscience that will eventually rule the day. 

I can only conclude, based on the information I have received today, the Halifax Bank of Scotland have absolutely no interest in either justice or conscience and, unless I am grossly mistaken, I suspect by the tone of his voice over the telephone earlier, the team leader at the Financial Ombudsman’s Service is more than aware of this unsavoury fact too.

Cabbages and Things

                                               
I, like Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States of America, have always been amongst those who believe that the greatest freedom of speech [is]the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking". Finding myself silenced by laryngitis for the last few days has provided me with an ideal opportunity to test this theory.

So far I have heard;

·        the US Justice Department has struggled to find adequate evidence to press criminal charges against senior executives of major lenders despite a multitude of mortgage documents bearing evidence of recently forged signatures and illegal alterations being made available to them. They remain convinced their hands are tied regardless of the U.S. Treasury’s confirmation that it is conducting a civil investigation into 4,500 illegal foreclosures while attorneys representing service members estimate banks have foreclosed on up to 30,000 military personnel in potential violation of the law.

·        Shane O’Riordain (Group Communications Director of the Lloyds banking group) saying on Radio 4, “It’s entirely right for companies, both our company and others, to pay bonuses when performance targets have been met” only a few hours before HBOS whistle blower Paul Moore explained, also on Radio 4, the flip side to this “reward for growth at any cost culture” was a publicly awarded cabbage for those who failed or, in his case, a lunacy label for warning of the economic risks.

·        Big banks continue to believe they are not only fair and fit for purpose, but essential for our continued welfare. They insist people should stop complaining and calling for regulatory measures to safeguard our economic future but instead, knuckle down to suffer whatever deprivation is necessary and leave them (in some cases the very same people who caused the economic crisis in the first place) to get on with fixing the economic crisis.

And on the home front:

·        Lloyds TSB’s collections department insist, in spite of the CAB’s written confirmation to the contrary, their file notes are evidence that my mature, part-time and voluntary CAB representative rang their Lloyds TSB collections department at 6.42 a.m. on the morning of 11 August 2010 to offer to make a payment arrangement on my behalf.

·        the Ombudsman’s adjudicator has explained, yet again that, in spite of originally initiating this particular ombudsman’s compliant on the basis that neither I, nor the CAB, had ever entered into a payment arrangement with Lloyds TSB, it is not her role to uphold my complaint by insisting, (as per my repeated requests) Lloyds communicate directly with me, just because they might have made a mistake about my entering apayment arrangement.

And

·        Faced with figures from Lloyds own housing growth tables for 2006-2008 which support  my case for the over-valuation of my property, I have been told my £217,000 mortgage shortfall is too “remote” to provide a causal link to support a loss for which I can sue.

It is said each of us are given a little spark of madness at birth and because of this it is important not to lose it. If my own week is anything to go by, there is absolutely no danger of this as I am clearly surrounded by either fools or madmen 

And,

In honour of International women’s day, our fair share of mad women too.