November, 2009

Stop preaching lads and listen to us

In the light of BBC Question Time tonight where the panel was unanimously against the idea of banks charging what they liked and when they liked, I’d like to offer the British Banking Association 5 Tips for increasing public confidence through good PR practice:-

1)      Employ  or at least promise the development of a fairer system for charging which does not penalise customers for human error. And to acknowledge long standing trustworthy customer relationships when times get hard ( a courtesy not extended to many of us).

2)      Publicly announce that banks will work with customer focus groups and take on board their concerns, publishing resulting reports once completed.

3)      To temper the “school teacher” approach adopted by CE, Angela Knight and suggest that a media training refresher course would be appropriate

4)      Lose the city image adopted by member banks. It’s not impressive and merely enhances the gap in reality between those who grasp and those who don’t have. Free corporate balloons doesn’t mean effective community relations.

5)      Simply be aware that they are losing the PR debate and be less stoic in their defence of the indefensible. This constant insistence on “sweeter than thou” knowledge of the economy is outmoded. The customer bailed out Northern Rock and HBOS, not the other way round.

I know I am living in cloud cuckoo land here and it’s a bit like trying to offer PR advice to the Royal Family. Look, I am not “anti bank.” I am impressed with the way that Natwest are developing their corporate identity and this has transcended to the branches with generally courteous staff just like in those ads.

But this still clouds the real issue that if you slip up, you will be punished. £38 for a rejection of a direct debit which was an admininstrative error and a resulting £28 for the charge on top by this same bank was my “free banking” bill this month. If I charged the BBA for this free advice, they’d be horrified and would swear blind they didn’t ask for this consultancy fee. Neither did I, my banking friends. Neither did I. Enjoy your free tips.

Positive positive positive today. Ok so I got a bit hot under the collar about the banks (see article below) Today then is a new day. Jedward have been fired but still making headlines. David Cameron looks like woodentop. Groundhog Day?

So, in the words of Fred the Weatherman “what have we got today?” Well the spin is that the green shoots of recovery have just been stomped on by a fat man with shiny shoes. Doh! It’s dem pesky banks again.

That Angela Knight really got my goat with that PR bilge about us naughty people not managing our accounts properly. Sorry British Bankers’ Association. You didn’t manage our economy properly and there’s plenty of your primary stakeholders out there who would agree with me. OK yah? You don’t get the final word on this even if the judges reckon it’s game over.

Oh ok I will continue with my rant. 6.59% was the cheapest rate I could get on a mortgage. On 120k that’s £950 a month in new money. There’s people out there with negative equity. Enter the willing punter (me) and any number of keen sellers (you?) and that rate separating us and we have that rather boring 0-0 draw. Hey we don’t even get to argue about the price of the dodgy curtains any more.

You see, to continue the analogy, banks are those fair weather supporters who are quite happy to stay aloof from their major stakeholders when going is heavy. When United are winning, it’s they who crowd us out of the 20/20 club and flash the cash. A bit like that scene in Batman with Jack Nicholson as The Joker where he distributes the dirty dollars to the good people of Gotham…before gassing them.

And I thought I was going to be a cheerful PR man today flower arranging the news so that it looked all rosy. Sorry but there are some good vibes on the way. I teach PR which these days means social media and I am running my own case study which might need your help. You see I want to be rich beyond my wildest dreams. Banks don’t come into it. Social media does.

More later. A little bird tells me that links are the way forward. So I will link Hokey Cokey style to you all and back again. Ohhhhh do the hokey cokey oooohhhh do the hokey cokeyyyyyy …told you I would end on a postive note. Praise Angela the all seeing eye.

Today I baulked at the decision by the Supreme Court effectively for banks to be allowed to charge for “unforeseen” overdrafts. What made it worse was the patronising words from Angela Knight from the British Bankers’ Association telling us all how to run our accounts more effectively. I won’t mince my words. It made me puke and I will tell you why:-

When I was divorced and made redundant in 2003, I needed all the help I could get. I did apply for an overdraft and went through all the right channels. So one day mugshot here was travelling across Wales to pick up a friend from a ferry terminal. I got to a garage (as you do) and they refused my HSBC Switch Card. Luckily I had cash.

Shorley shome mishtake I naturally assumed. Yes the mistake was on my part, dear reader. I had exceeded my agreed overdraft by a few quid. I had miscalculated. Human error. What did HSBC do? They sent me to Pakistani call centres to argue my case. I spent a whole Saturday in tears of frustration making around 15 phone calls that day trying to explain to people who couldn’t speak English that I had since repaid the few quid owed and arguing a case for the resumption of services.

My overdraft and loan combined amounted to just less than £2500. Everyone else, including my mortgage lender, Nationwide Building Society had stayed patient with me. Eventually due to income arising from self employment, I managed to climb out of that financial bog. It’s a case of keeping your head above it and try to stay smiling for your kids’ sake. These people who run banks are not interested in you, they’re interested in what they can make from you.

HSBC got their Rottweilers, DG Solicitors on to it and recovered the money with a County Court Judgement. Should I be publicising my CCJ? Oh yes a big hearty yes. Because thankfully social media now gives us the voice to do so. I am not ashamed to expose this organisation for what they are. I am sure other people have similar experiences. If so, as the consumer guru Martn Lewis of www.moneysavingexpert.com, has said, write to your MP’s and give the banks another kicking for breaching the trust in those that keep their fat spotty behinds on those big leather chairs.

I don’t want to play victim. I wouldn’t give HSBC the satisfaction. I had been with HSBC for 20 odd years. I can even remember my first Midland bank cheque book as a student. Before that I used to go with my dad to Hamilton Square branch in Birkenhead every Saturday morning. I wouldn’t pass water over the same building now. He’d be horrified at their dishonourable behaviour had he still been alive today.

Only two weeks before the shit hit the fan, these highwaymen had me in there trying to transfer my mortgage over to them. I kid you not!

I haven’t got current money riding on this. Nope. I kind of knew in my heart of hearts they would pull this off. I didn’t even bother to lodge a reclaim of bank charges. I wasn’t going to have these greedy halfwits at HSBC turn me down once again. Yet it’s us account holder who have bailed out the banks during one of the worst recessions in modern history. And now once again they have cajoled the judges with the thick wedges they have smacked down on the oak desks of their slimy slick suited lawyers.

If you see this article and want to lift it for your own website then please feel free. All I ask is that you provide a link back. These people need to know how we, their primary stakeholders, actually feel today.