I was a bank manager until 2001. In this article, I will give you the inside story and explain how your bank can be forced to write off your consumer debt because it is legally unenforcable.
I will set out the qualifying criteria for those borrowers who have the best chance of success and advise you on what to do next if you think you are eligible. So if you want to know how to pay off your debt quickly, read on.
A Game-keeper Turned Poacher?
I feel a little bit like a ‘gamekeeper turned poacher’ and I’ve thought hard about the ethics and morals of what I’m going to reveal in this article. After all, if you borrowed the money and entered into an agreement to pay it back, then it’s only right that you should pay it back!
I’ve always believed that, and I still do, because without some rules, society would dissolve into chaos and we would all pay a heavy price. But I was on the inside and I viewed the banking culture at first hand and many in the bank did not have integrity as a core value. Hitting the sales target was all that mattered in exchange for money.
The Moral Dilemma
I’ve asked myself these two questions:
* Is it morally right that bank employees are paid large bonuses for entering into short-term transactions that add little or no value (or are indeed detrimental) to their customers, shareholders and society?
* Is it morally right that the tax-payer (you and me) then bails the bank out when the ‘chickens come home to roost’?
* Is it right that they continue on as if nothing had happened, paying themselves large bonuses and indulging in highly leveraged and speculative activities?
I was on the inside when the banks were setting sales targets and attaching bonuses to achieving them. This put huge pressure on bank employees to ‘perform’ by pushing more and more financial products at their hapless customers, irrespective of whether this was responsible behaviour or not.
Risk-assessment skills took a back-seat to greed and many of the traditional bankers with risk-assessment skills simply left or moved away to other jobs. You see in order to do a quality job in banking you need to turn aside the more doubtful and risky propositions. However, if this means that you cannot reach your target then standards inevitably drop and this is what happened in banking.
What Price Integrity?
Those that remained only did so by compromising their integrity and entered into behaviour that they knew would ultimately lead to disaster. Some of those former colleagues suffered from depression and nervous breakdowns as the pressures mounted and the moral dilemmas tore them apart. Some even resorted to lying to their risk managers in order to get propositions agreed in order to meet sales targets.
So bank customers were persuaded to take finance and financial products that achieved the banks targets but would ultimately damage the financial well-being of their customers and, by extension, their shareholders.
You see, I strongly believe the banks have a moral duty to give sound financial advice to their customers and that is how the banks still like to present themselves, even though their sham has now been exposed by the banking crisis. But such advice is sometimes diametrically opposed to the targets the banks were setting.
Unfortunately, the culture of individual and corporate banking greed won out and you, the customer, are now paying a heavy price during this recession as the bankers now scramble to save their worthless necks.
This is why I will lose very little sleep from offering you a way out of your debt burden.
So Would You Like To Get Out Of Debt?
As you may, or may not be aware, The Consumer Credit Act was enacted in 1974 to protect the rights of borrowers and lenders.
This laid down strict rules which lenders have to comply with in order for their lending to be legally enforcable i.e. for the banks to be able to use the legal system to recover the money from you. I was taught that if you deviated from the rules, the debt was unenforcable (and this could be your salvation.)
The requirements of the Act are onerous in that lenders must follow the processes set out in the Act to the letter, which include:
* where and how the loan or credit card (or whatever) is sold to you
* what documentation is required and what it should include
* the process that must be followed, including a 14 day cooling off period.
Bankers who are eager to achieve their bonuses are mainly concerned about one thing - that the product is sold so that they can achieve their short-term targets and bonuses. Couple that with a complicated process and inexperience, as many staff left and new ones were recruited, and you have a recipe for disaster.
As a result, the Financial Times has reported recently that potentially millions of credit card and loan agreements are in breach of the Act and can be deemed ‘unenforceable’.
Do I have sympathy for the banks? Absolutely not. They’ve been thrusting their expensive ‘weapons of mass destruction’ down our throats for years. At one time, not a day went by without another credit card offer landing on my doormat and I could barely enter a shop without being offered a store card. Perhaps you have had the same experience?
It’s been like throwing petrol on the fires of consumerism and look where we have all ended up!
As to the banks payment protection policies (that are often sold alongside loans, credit cards and debt products), the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have ruled that many of these policies have been mis-sold which means that you can make a claim to get your money back.
I steadfastly refused to offer payment protection policies (PPI) to any of my customers because the price was too high andInterest rate payouts were often problematical. If I was not willing to take out PPI myself, then I reasoned that I should not ask my customers to do so because it could seriously damage their wealth!
Also, I was aware that there was a danger that some customers might feel obligated to take the PPI just to secure the loan. Unfortunately many bankers were not so scrupulous. As soon as someone attached a target to selling PPI insurance, then of course those bankers were reluctant to point out that the insurance was in fact an expensive ‘optional’ extra.
So those bankers that thought it OK to sell you these products deserve everything they’re about to get, in my opinion!
So Thousands Of Borrowers In The UK Now Have A Short Window Of Opportunity To Get Their Debts Written Off or Their PPI Premiums Repaid - Are You Eligible Too?
If you can answer ‘Yes’ to any (or all) of these questions then you have a potential claim:
* Did you take out a loan before the 1st April 2007? Was it for less than GBP25,000 (excluding interest and fees), where you are still paying more than GBP100 per month and you have more than 12 payments left to make?
* Did you take out Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) with the loan?
* Did you take out a credit card on or before the 1st April 2007? Is the balance on this card over GBP2,000?
* Did you take out mortgage protection insurance?
If You Answered ‘Yes’ To The Above Questions - Here’s What To Do Next…
Get a FREE initial assessment from an expert to further establish the eligibility of your claim. I look for:
* lenders who did not give you all the information they were required to provide to comply with the Consumer Credit Act
* agreements that were not executed in the prescribed format
* miscalculation of monthly payments, interest rates and the total amount repayable
* non-provision of relevant documentation post the agreement
* non-disclosure of commissions or fees
* mis-selling of ancillary products.
As you can see, there is plenty that can (and does) go wrong!
Only if I think that you have a good chance of success, would I recommend that you pursue your claim.
You having nothing to lose by getting a FREE initial assessment from an expert to discover whether or not you can have your remaining debt written-off and/or your full PPI premiums repaid.
Please don’t hang around. As previously stated, you only have a relatively short window of opportunity to take action to get yourself out of debt.
Mark Salmon is an ex-bank manager turned business consultant Mark specialises in providing business development and coaching services for small businesses. If you want to get out of debt, he may be contacted through the ‘Contact’ page on his blog at http://businessrenegade.co.uk
