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Notes_Norton

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A few years ago I was in dispute with a major bank over whether they could unilaterally change a contract I had with them. I referred the case  to a major national newspaper who actually agreed with me and printed several articles about it. Basically they had referred me to a certain paragraph/subsection of the signed agreement that simply did not exist. The case was taken up by the financial authorities who ruled that the bank's response after having it pointed out that there was no such paragraph in the contract ........."It was in the agreement, but it just wasn't printed as there wasn't enough room on the page..."  was within the law !!

 

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58 minutes ago, paulo said:

A few years ago I was in dispute with a major bank over whether they could unilaterally change a contract I had with them. I referred the case  to a major national newspaper who actually agreed with me and printed several articles about it. Basically they had referred me to a certain paragraph/subsection of the signed agreement that simply did not exist. The case was taken up by the financial authorities who ruled that the bank's response after having it pointed out that there was no such paragraph in the contract ........."It was in the agreement, but it just wasn't printed as there wasn't enough room on the page..."  was within the law !!

 

Did you then point out the other "unprinted" area that said your account would earn 200% interest?

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3 hours ago, paulo said:

A few years ago I was in dispute with a major bank over whether they could unilaterally change a contract I had with them. I referred the case  to a major national newspaper who actually agreed with me and printed several articles about it. Basically they had referred me to a certain paragraph/subsection of the signed agreement that simply did not exist. The case was taken up by the financial authorities who ruled that the bank's response after having it pointed out that there was no such paragraph in the contract ........."It was in the agreement, but it just wasn't printed as there wasn't enough room on the page..."  was within the law !!

 

That is, in my legal opinion, b.s. . . . which Corp screwed you thus?

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8 minutes ago, emeraldsoul said:

That is, in my legal opinion, b.s. . . . which Corp screwed you thus?

I believe him. For the same reason my lawyer said his fee was 33% of my crash lawsuit settlement but somehow he ended up with 50%. Sometimes the devil isn't in the details.

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18 minutes ago, emeraldsoul said:

That is, in my legal opinion, b.s. . . . which Corp screwed you thus?

I think everyone thinks/knows it's BS, but there's knowing it and there's being able to do something about it. I have no reason to protect the names, so if you really want to know it was Barclays Bank. They bought out Standard Bank and took over all existing accounts with the explicit promise that any existing contracts would be honoured, which btw was a condition of the takeover decreed by the High Court in granting that the takeover so that it would not be against anti-monopoly legislation. Soon after the takeover happened they wrote informing me of changes they were making to former Standard Bank accounts, which was when I informed the national press. The newspaper whose solicitor was also quoted as saying it was illegal, was The Times (UK). I wasn't the only one affected, many others came forward as a result of the newspaper article and eventually it was referred to the UK Financial Ombudsmen who found in favour of Barclays. It was more a point of principle in my case, so I wasn't going to get into spending lawyer money to pursue them, but many others would have suffered considerable financial implications as a result of the changes that were allowed to be made due to a non-existent clause.

Anyhoo, that's all a bit serious for the CH, so somebody better put up something suitable for all the five year olds that apparently frequent the place on a regular basis now, or the axe will fall.

 

 

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5 hours ago, paulo said:

Anyhoo, that's all a bit serious for the CH,

But the page was left blank. How could that be offensive.   This way it is left to the imagination.  ;)

Oh I just remembered I have to go turn down the lights, put on some music.................. :D

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For the record, I didn't think it was you, or your story, that was b.s.  and thank you for your explanation! I thought it was b.s. how you were treated, being charged a fee under a non-existing contract clause.

 

That's total b.s. !!!

 

And now for something more suitable, yet still related:

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  • Haha 1
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13 hours ago, emeraldsoul said:

For the record, I didn't think it was you, or your story, that was b.s.  and thank you for your explanation! I thought it was b.s. how you were treated, being charged a fee under a non-existing contract clause.

It was about way more than fees. The SB accounts were the best deal in town by a long way. Borrowing rate fixed at 1% below Bank of England base rate (which IIRC was about 3% at the time )  the ability to overpay on any borrowing whenever you wanted to thus reducing min payments and/or length of the borrowing period, get the overpayment back later if it turned out that you needed it for something, plus pre-agreed further borrowing that was a phone call away and paid into your account within days, plus if you moved house the whole thing could just be transferred to the new house with you, so no need to re-finance with all the costs associated with that. The first changes they made were borrowing now 1% over THEIR base rate of 4.99% (making it  6% instead of 2%) no reclaiming of overpayments, agreed further borrowing to be cut by 50% and then still subject to their approval for which you would be charged, no longer transferrable without approval.....the list went on.... In short it turned the best deal in town into one of the worst. 

Revisiting the subject now reminded me of the best part of all..........after I informed their HQ to smile nicely for the Times  journalist that would paying them a visit, they offered me  a "special" deal which would re-instate everything that was in my previous agreement as long as I signed a new agreement, which they enclosed with the letter. The new agreement contained a clause to the effect that they could change this agreement at any time without any notice. You can imagine where they were told to insert that. ?

As I said, it was more about the principle to me, I didn't actually need the deal any more, it was just nice to have, so I just walked away from it, but many others were not in that position so you can imagine the impact on their finances. At best they were faced with paying thousands to take their business elsewhere.

So, back OT.......

Notes, be aware  - that page may contain far more text than you realise.

 

 

Edited by paulo
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