A Couple more Section Suggestions

[nij4t2]

Thinking about courier companies got me thinking about Royal Mail... and then when I saw bankfodders posts about Extended Warranties, I though that this was similar (in a way) to Royal Mail / The Post Office offerings of Recorded and Special Delivery. I used to use postal services a lot, so I learnt some truths about those two 'special services' - like most people don't realise that:

* Recorded Delivery does get a signature on receipt - but if you want to see a copy of the signature for proof of delivery or insurance purposes, it costs about £2.50;

* Recorded delivery does not offer any enhancements to the guarantee on delivery date - and if a parcel goes missing it will be weeks before they will even acknowledge loss (though I accept this is far more rare than for standard 1st / 2nd class)

* For items without financial value (and to some extent, even with) proof of posting is often enough... but entirely impractical for many items...

* And of course, all these extra value services are really only additional insurance that they do what they are meant to do with a first class stamp!

 

Anyway, probably not enough for a forum, but I liked the analogy to the extended warranties.

 

My second suggestion is for a 'Consequences' forum. "What are the Consequences of thousands of people winning charges back from the banks, and further work by the OFT etc.?" It might not have any effect for a couple of years, but surely in the long run, the charges will be lowered? And when they do, how will the banks change banking? I know there are some 'scare tactics' used by the banks and I do not suggest a forum would be appropriate to dissuade people from what I now believe (thanks to all your guys help! ) to be reclaiming their own money from illegal charges, but surely if the banks were to lose that 3 billion cash injection, other things would change? Alternatively, we could have a forum "what would we reasonably expect bank services to be in future"

 

I predict:

1. Far more banks will settle with conditions of closing the customers account should they accrue charges again - otherwise they risk further action from the same customer, only this time the customer will have more reason to use that last term in the court papers about the whole Contract being illegal, and they would have far less reason to settle out of court (because they wanted to take the stand on that point);

2) Sometime, it may be sooner than anyone expects, a bank will reduce their charges to £12 (limit of OFT legal action as reported recently) and start using it in comparative advertising - a sort of loss-leader for getting more customers... they'd only need to double the number of people regularly paying charges (and it is those people they would most likely attract, surely?) to be doing very nicely thank you!

 

Well, maybe I'm in dreamland... I sort of imagine a 'price war' on bank charges but that's probably too much to hope for!

[nij4t2]

This topic was closed on 03/08/19.

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