International Happiness Day

Self improvement guru, lecturer, and author of How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Brekenridge Carnegi once said, “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it” and today, on International Happiness Day, I could not agree more.

Once devastated to the point of ill health I am relieved to say I am no longer the woman who could once be found underweight, completely bald from stress and cowering in her soon to be repossessed home. Police officers from the Armed Response Unit do not now frequent my drive to discourage angry tradesmen from laying siege and the threat of a claw hammer to my husband’s head is not what I think of when I hear a knock at my door. No more do I endure the involuntary stomach flips which used to go hand in hand with a glimpse of the postman approaching my house and neither do I answer each and every phone call with the trepidation of a woman braced for the onslaught of hard line debt collectors and their verbal abuse.

It has taken almost five years, upwards of three hundred and fifty letters, forty or more debt counselling consultations, three full blown Financial Ombudsman Service investigations, one hundred and fifty five blog posts, twenty thousand two hundred and ninety four page views,  one thousand nine hundred and ninety six tweets,  an inordinate amount of political and economic reading,  numerous phone calls, countless comments on facebook together with thousands and thousands of man hours to discover that although happiness is not dependent on what I have, where I am or what I am doing, happiness is definitely about having something to hope for.

American author and essayist Elizabeth Gilbert once said, “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it” and although financially our circumstances have remained unchanged, I am very pleased to report that by fighting, striving and insisting I have not only discovered that I have been a victim of mortgage fraud but I have also found someone who investigates financial fraud on behalf of clients trapped by the wrongdoing of lenders and their associates who is prepared to take my case.

Because of this I now most definitely have hope and it is for this reason, today on International Happiness Day, I feel truly happy!

Ridiculous Enemies

Roman economist, lawyer and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero once said,” There is no sanctuary so holy that money cannot profane it, no fortress so strong that money cannot take it by storm” and while bonus pots continue to unashamedly reward the untouchables for their ever increasing list of banking failures, it is no surprise to find the words of this ancient Roman theorist still ring uncomfortably true.

Reputedly focused only on electoral gain, Cameron and Osborne do nothing to bring our elitist banking fraudsters to account while regulatory figure heads Turner and Wheatley prefer to promote the fallacy that the dirty deeds of banking avarice are but a distasteful memory of the unregulated past. In preference to making use of the laws of incorporation  to the secure the prosecution of those who chose to serve themselves at the expense of the majority, banking losses remain socialized while those who condoned them keep the wealth their dishonesty has afforded them.

In contrast, the  opportunities to seek recompense for those who fell foul of this culture of miss selling and manipulation are limited by way of cut backs to legal aid and the withdrawal of funding to charitable organisations such as the CAB. Yet, driven by the terror of an alternative which could herald the breakdown of the current financial system (not to mention the loss of influential friends and their much valued votes) our two faced politicians have left the victims of this criminal banking culture abandoned and defenseless in the jaws of their oppressors. As one would expect the ongoing governmental trend to pretend and placate the voters rather than address the root cause of the banking crisis, has done nothing to deter the same self serving and morally bereft people who now insist that lessons have been learned.

In the real world it is business as usual for the bankers and despite much talk about plans to serve both the economy and the customer, the long suffering individual is still being persecuted and bullied into untenable submission. The cases below represent the tip of a huge iceberg which is unlikely to feature on any politician or regulator's radar because, unlike powerful corporations with budgets for legal and financial advice, the individuals concerned have once again been hung out to dry having been left with no alternative but to succumb to the whims of the all powerful banks demands and then crawl away to seek some quiet solitude in order to lick their wounds. This is because many have neither the stomach , the knowledge or the means by which to stand up to the wanton disregard of the banking fraternity they are forced to deal with.

Over the past few months I have discovered;

HSBC, who laundered 600 million in drugs money and paid only the equivalent to a few weeks profit in fines as a consequence, are unprepared to renegotiate the terms of a 15% LTV mortgage of an employed professional woman, and a mother of three, who cannot make ends meet now her husband has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She has never missed a payment and had originally planned to repay her loan in five years time. She has been told by HSBC she has no alternative but to sell her beloved family home of twenty years as quickly as possible.

HFC, a key offender in the miss sold PPI scandal, have repeatedly told a chronically ill widow that her 30% LTV mortgage must be repaid in full. She has been advised her mortgage cannot be rescheduled  (her husband died without sufficient  life assurance to repay the loan) despite having made every payment in full every month for twenty years and a guarantee from her pension provider confirming she can afford to continue to pay. She is faced with the unpalatable prospect of selling her lovingly restored home as quickly as possible.

Barclays, who made a healthy profit from the manipulation of LIBOR rates, repeatedly told an 85 year old woman who believed she had purchased a lifetime mortgage  at 20% LTV that she would have to repay the outstanding balance on her mortgage with immediate effect or face the ordeal of the bank applying to the courts to take possession of her home. On attempting to initiate a formal complaint she was told it was unlikely to be dealt with until after her house had been forcibly sold.

And,

HBOS, who have earned themselves the reputation of being the worst bank in the world , unnecessarily forced the sale on my home rather than allow me to rent it to cover my mortgage payments, spent the past four and half years telling me a woman has no right to be informed separately from her husband about mortgage arrears if her husband is already in discussion with them and, having made use of a fictitious purchase price and purchase date in order to over value my home and sell me a mortgage in the first place, now tell me the discovery of these falsified facts has nothing to do with them. Furthermore, in true HBOS bully boy fashion, I have received two demands from their debt collections agency despite HBOS’s own acknowledgement that they understand my case is currently under investigation by the Financial Ombudsman Service.

French enlightenment writer, historian, philosopher and master of wit, Voltaire, once said, “I have only made but one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord make my enemies ridiculous, and God granted it” and if recent events are anything to go by, ridiculous enemies appear not to be the exclusive domain of Voltaire!

Learning Difficulties

First Viscount Saint Alban, philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist and author, Francis bacon once said," It's not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong: not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich: not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned: and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity" and although I have drawn strength from words such as these throughout each and every excruciating year spent in the ruthless jaws of the Halifax Bank of Scotland, I suspect for the vast majority of those I am forced to deal with, strength of resolve, fair practice and  integrity occupy a negligible space among their tasks in hand  and  this week’s correspondence has offered  little opportunity to think otherwise.

Following receipt of  the Financial Ombudsman Service’s confirmation  that my miss selling case has been accepted  and  is now awaiting allocation  to an adjudicator, I have  requested a copy of  every single document relating to my Bank of Scotland  mortgage from the following organisations.

• The solicitor who conveyed my mortgage
• The Bank of Scotland archive
• The surveyors  instructed to value my property
• The mortgage broker who introduced our application to HBOS

Excited in anticipation of the information my actions might afford me, I was delighted to find my solicitor happily agreed to put the matter in hand immediately and, in spite of a history of reluctance to assist in my compliant,  I am equally pleased to report HBOS have agreed  to furnish me with the information I require by 1 April.

Both the surveyors and the broker have not.

Much to my astonishment, not only have I discovered the surveyors instructed to value my home were salaried HBOS employees, but because of a specific instruction by the Bank of Scotland at the time of application  stating I should not be supplied with the valuation, these same HBOS employees remain unwilling to part with any information  now. Furthermore, the broker who placed our £790,000 mortgage with HBOS in 2006, and by so doing earned himself a healthy £4,000 fee, now regrets they are unable to supply copies of documents relating to my mortgage application because their regulators do not require them to keep records for this length of time.

As my recently acquired advocate and I smell a rat, I have written to the Financial Services Authority to ask for their comments on the mortgage brokers letter. I now wait with interest to learn the outcome.

American novelist and author Lloyd Alexander said, “We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and  not finding it than from  learning the answer itself” and  while some continue to  seek answers which negate bonus caps and others prefer profits to serve the greater good, I plan to practice the art of asking questions of HBOS because I am convinced  it is as organisation where fraud  has come naturally and because of this I am now paying the price.

Unjust Desserts

American clergyman, activist and leader in the African civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Junior once said, “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” However, waiting for history to take a favourable course in the wake of the unquenchable avarice of our unprosecuted banksters has frequently proved beyond the capacity of some to face alone. For us, the determined spirit of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau has been invaluable.

First formulated in 1924 as result a of the Betterton Report on Public Assistance and launched fifteen years later on the day after the break out of the Second World War, this government funded service quickly found debt advice was a key issue for those who sought the expertise of its trained volunteers. After seventy successful years offering free consultations to those in need, their initial two hundred offices had expanded to three and a half thousand UK locations and its 21,500 volunteer staff had assisted some of the UK’s most vulnerable negotiate homelessness, asylum, state benefits, employment law, tenancy rights as well as two major recessions and the onset of the banking crisis.

The CAB now prides itself on being able to assist more than 14.2 million individuals a year. They are supported over the phone and the internet as well as provided with face to face advice from the bureau or visits to their homes. In 2003 following a review of its practices by the Office for Public Management, it was concluded, “the CAB service provides excellent value in return for the public funding it receives. It makes a significant contribution to individuals and communities, as well as to the process of policy-making and service delivery. Its holistic approach, national coverage and independence are to be cherished.”

Ten years have passed since this commendable observation was made and the CAB is currently busier than ever assisting those who have fallen foul of an economic crisis caused by criminality within the banking sector. With only the top 10% of wage earners in the UK continuing to prosper, it goes without saying many of the victims of debt and banking fraud would struggle to find refuge from their assailants without the CAB’s help. Yet despite increasing demand, the CAB has recntly been forced to turn hundreds of thousands of people away because their funding has been axed by 45%.  As a result of these governmental and local authority cut backs they have no alternative but to close offices which are still playing a vital role in the community. Sadly the CAB office which rescued my own sanity is to be one of them.

In contrast to the invaluable contribution being made by the CAB, the delusional and unrepentant bankers armed themselves with weapons of financial mass destruction, used the window of opportunity created by financial deregulation to approach their business activities without moral hindrance plundered the reserves of their banks, their customers and the economy.  Furthermore, by obtaining tax payer funded bailouts to preserve their jobs and their “modest” remunerations, they have cunningly redirected funding formerly earmarked for the auspicious community serving CA B and deftly removed the only means by which many of their victims have been able to fight back.

Roman economist, lawyer and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero once said,” There is no sanctuary so holy that money cannot profane it, no fortress so strong that money cannot take it by storm” and recent history clearly illustrates that a small group of inauspicious bankers have used money to both profane and to storm and it is the Citizen's Advice Bureau and it's service users who are now being forced to pay the price. 

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.

Costs of Living

Joseph Franklin Rutherford, US trial lawyer, prosecutor and key developer of the Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrines, once said, “ False riches consisting of money, houses and lands, acquired by selfish means at cost to others and thereafter used selfishly, are almost always used for the oppression of other persons” and allowing those who created a culture of banking fraud (a crime the industry and its regulators would prefer to call miss selling and manipulation) escape accountability, retain the proceeds of their ill gotten gains and position themselves beyond the long arm of the law, clearly illustrates how little has changed since Rutherford first made his observation.

In 2009 the National Audit office stated 850 billion pounds had been spent on saving the UK’s banks from the consequences of their fraudulent actions. This equates to something in the region of £3,500 to £27,500 per capita, depending on whether losses in share values are included in the calculation, and the obligation to fund this sum has been laid firmly on the shoulders of each and every individual in the UK. Furthermore, in Ireland current estimates indicate the cost of the economic crisis will quadruple that which the UK has so far endured. However, four full years since the first distasteful load of banksters dirty washing was aired in public, the tawdry truth has had little effect on those who masterminded this calculated redistribution of wealth.  Their houses and their lands along with their money remain intact and the fines levied by regulators (and perceived by the majority as punishment) have been, for the most part, funded from company coffers which were previously filled from the pockets of the long suffering British taxpayer.

Crime has clearly paid in the banking sector but for their victims the story is a very different one. Increased unemployment and reduced benefits have left many people struggling to make ends meet and 1.4 million families in the UK are currently facing homelessness because crisis driven austerity measures and job shortages have left them without sufficient income to meet rent and mortgage payments. Despite the Bank of England’s governor Mervyn King saying something has gone “very wrong” with Britain’s banks and “it’s time to do something about [it]”, little has changed. Speaking as one who has suffered insurmountable loses as a result of the banking crisis, I believe reform has not been forthcoming because those causing the problems have not been required to pick up the bill.

Natalie Ceeney, the Chief Financial Ombudsman recently told a Parliamentary Inquiry investigating bank miss-selling, “Evidence given by the banks was "factually untrue [and] implausible"  and further states "I have never trusted any CEO who says ‘I didn’t know'”. However, Parliamentary inquiries, independent investigations and harsh words have still not held the culprits to account and leniency of this nature allows infamous organisations like HBOS to remain untroubled by regulatory requirements and positively blasé about the complaints process.

As I have found to my detriment, making a financial service complaint is fraught with pitfalls and if my own case is anything to go by, it is not a journey to be undertaken by the fainthearted. I have spent years negotiating its tricky intricacies and despite my best efforts, I am still to be found waiting, under the less than watchful eye of the Financial Ombudsman Service, for a further two fruitless weeks for the Halifax Bank of Scotland to provide me with the thorough and timely investigation they personally promised me in November 2012.

In the meantime I have requested they supply me with the following,

• A copy of my original mortgage application form
• A copy of the Bank of Scotland’s underwriting compliance documents
• Acknowledgement from the Halifax Bank of Scotland ( by return) of my 24 Jan response to their letter dated 17 Jan 2013
• A revised response from the Halifax Bank of Scotland (within 14 days) concerning my over valuation complaint using actual figures rather than fictitious ones.

Needless to say I have heard nothing.

Joseph Franklin Rutherford also said, “If you are kept in ignorance of the true way and permit yourself to rely upon and be guided by the opinion of imperfect man, you can never gain the riches that bring you peace and lasting happiness”.  Likewise if both I and the general public continue to be kept in ignorance by the "factually untrue" and "implausible inaccuracies" of the banksters, I can see that not only will my imperfect Halifax Bank of Scotland customer services man be unable to furnish me with my rightful fair share of peace and lasting happiness, but the riches which were supplied to the banks by the British tax payer will remain in the pockets of the unscrupulous indefinitely.

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.