Banks are not only guilty of mismanagement on a global scale. They also treat their customers with contempt.

One of the ways that they demonstrate this is to keep information to themselves that customers could use to protect their money. If a bank is not going to lose out when your money goes missing, they generally can’t be bothered to tell you how to avoid losing it.

Other organisations do make some effort to advise you- newspapers, police, trading standards etc.- but rarely banks.

This blog aims to help to spread the word.

Fairness and justice are rare commodities in the banking world. This applies as much to retail customers as any others.

Business customers have a worse deal, because the Financial Ombudsman Service will not consider their complaints. it is also impossible for individuals, or small businesses, to sue banks for negligence. Some small businesses have grouped together to bring pressure on banks by way of bad publicity, or by raising funds for a class-action. There have been some successes. It is possible that banks will be forced to put good the  damage that they did in mis-selling interest rate swaps. Another campaign is just beginning against banks that have made significant interest-rate increases on tracker mortgages at a time that the BoE has held rates stable.

Retail customers could learn from this. There has been little concerted effort for them to get redress for damage that they have suffered at the hands of banks. This is especially true of customers who have been victims of fraud, but have not been reimbursed by their banks. In many cases, their experience will have left them feeling embarrassed and guilty. The banks will have made sure that they feel like that.

Listen to me. It’s not your fault. If the crooks have used weaknesses in the banks systems to rob you, the bank owes you. Fight back.

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