A LICENSE TO STEAL?

Daniel Roberts - Sailing the Caribbean

"What amazes me is the way financial institutions can behave exactly as they please and get away with it. If I treated my clients the way my last bank treated me, I imagine they would threaten legal action and, quite honestly, I would consider them to be within their rights. There was no recourse to law for me - my only choice was to change banks, which I did. The impression I get, though, is that the major banks all seem to run on fairly similar lines.

The most obvious sign of their duplicity, to my mind, is the way in which their computerised accounting systems work entirely in their favour. Should you decide to withdraw a sum of money from a cash dispenser on the other side of the world, in a town of which your bank manager has, most certainly, never heard, the fact that you have done so appears to be reflected in your account at that very moment. 

Your next statement shows that the banks' computer registered the  withdrawal immediately. If, on the other hand, your client should transfer money to that same bank from his bank, only two doors down the street, it can take five days, and sometimes much longer, for that sum to be credited to your account.  

Attempting to transfer money internationally can take several weeks, although both banks involved are major banks and there is no obvious reason for the delay, nor is any proffered. That money earns interest for someone during that period, no doubt, but it certainly isn't for you.

As far as I am concerned, sitting on a clients' money instead of delivering it with the same promptness displayed when the transaction flows in the opposite direction is legalised theft."

Having experienced this ourselves ,on several occasions, we tend to agree that this is an abuse. Unfortunately, as Mr. Roberts points out, there seems to be little to choose between banks. Or maybe you know differently? 

Cynthia Knight found that, when it came to buying a new boat, this problem nearly cost her dearly...

LOST IN THE ETHER!

Cynthia Knight - UK

"What's the hardest part of buying a new boat? Selecting which delectable morsel which will eventually be yours? Ticking for all those extras you can't afford? Tying up delivery dates, commissioning, insurance and enough minor details to make this a major project? Selling the old boat? Putting up with minimal sailing of friends' boats for six months? Getting a berth in the marina of your choice? 

No! Transferring the money from one bank to another, at great expense, despite the fact it's merely from one account of ours to another in our name. It's been lost in the ether since last Friday. Such is the efficiency of our great financial institutions. Unfortunately it's jeopardising our delivery date and we're both suffering from severe sailing deprivation. 

With one bank, we had a sterling to DM arrangement and with the other a DM account.  The former is a traditional high street bank and the latter an American phone/internet bank (well they do have a few branches in each country, but in the UK that is three in London which, if you
live in Derbyshire, is not that convenient!)

Much to our surprise, the high street bank, whose clients we have been for 30 years, was
hopeless, but Citibank were excellent, phoning us on the mobile as soon as the DM had reappeared and arranging an immediate transfer to Germany on our behalf, in order that the boat delivery was not delayed.  More than that, there is no charge for transfers between sterling and euros, or the currency of your choice.  

So, you don't have to be a genius to guess our next move.  We're planning, as soon as possible, to sail in the Mediterranean, so such flexibility will be much needed and appreciated.

Who said we are a nation who will end up selling hamburgers to each other? Currently I feel that's all the banks are capable of - even then they'd be supplying 'em cold! "

The Bavaria 34 did eventually arrive in Wales, despite gales and blizzards and the last we heard, after the completion of rigging work and other pre-launch finishing touches, Cynthia was just about to enjoy the first sail aboard 'Thursday's Child'.

It sounds as though Citibank merit more than a cursory glance. What a shame that, after three decades of enjoying such customer loyalty, the other bank didn't quite seem to be able to cut the mustard...perhaps this is a sign that one should change banks regularly if one wants to be treated well...rewarding customer loyalty is not a practice associated with most banks. In fact...

STAY IN TOUCH - STAY IN DEBT

Linnet Woods - Azores, Mid-Atlantic

In the middle of  town there is a very old building, high above what looks like an ancient battlement, all covered in ivy, and at the left-hand end of this, one enters the huge portals, turns left in front of an old wooden fishing boat and waits, clutching a little slip of paper with a number on it, taken from one of those machines that are so popular these days with those who have to deal with the public. It takes two months to obtain the permanent (well, no, it expires in 2006, actually) proof that a fiscal number has been allocated to one, in the familiar plastic form shared by credit and telephone cards. In the meantime, a bank will accept a slip, issued at the time of making the application, by the tax office, to say that your papers are being processed, for the purposes of opening an account in your name. 

As I sat in the bank, waiting to be attended by a gentleman who could speak English, I was fascinated to observe that new teenage clients, opening an account with 5000 Escudos (the equivalent of about fifteen pounds or twenty-five US dollars) would be rewarded for choosing this particular bank with various goodies, including a free mobile 'phone. Mobile 'phones seem to be a popular inducement, this being the third bank in which I had observed a campaign along these lines.

'Great!' I thought. 'At that rate, my first transfer of funds into this bank should result in my being rewarded with a mobile home!' How naïve can you get?!

These offers are only available to teenagers opening a first-ever bank account. The banks know that once the youngsters have accepted the - almost irresistible - free telephone, it is virtually inevitable that they will come to see their bank accounts as an intrinsic part of their young lives. At some point, most of those youngsters will borrow money. Paying it back will, at first, be made as painless as possible. Over a period of time, youngsters are thus trained to turn to the bank for the means of gratifying whatever consumer desires form part of their growing up, creating a habit of borrowing that will ensure that they keep the banks in funds for many years to come. Those who salt away some of their hard-earned cash, against future needs or to accumulate enough capital to permit the realisation of a goal, receive a lower rate of reward than they otherwise might because somebody has to pay for all those telephones...

The way in which the young are thus ensnared by banks seems, to me, to have a parallel in the way playground drug pushers give away the first few doses of their evil wares, precisely enough of those wares to ensure dependency, or at least an unwillingness to forego the euphoria, and then proceed to reap the long-term financial harvest from their latest victims.

Cynical? Me? If anybody is cynical, I'd say it's the bright spark at pretty well every major bank who makes it his, or her, business, to find out what appeals to youngsters and set the trap...