Fashion Contrast

Today I wrote a post on a blog that I occasionally write on – Blackbeard My Telegraph

I will copy it here for you two read. Its about being conned by companies and their Direct Debit Schemes, I will also put a couple of the replies it got here!

Companies need to be fairer thats my only real point to this post.

When one takes out a contract with a company for say Mobile Broadband/phone/Tv – I would really like them to give me the option to set up the direct debit so it comes out of my account pretty soon after I have been paid. It always seems that they decide to take the money say 1 week just before I have been paid.

Frustrating – how is one meant to put aside money to budget/put into savings when these potential essentials are being charged to us willy nilly. We need change and we need it now…

SteddyEddy put forward this interesting reply:

I am experimenting with Standing Orders, where you have the ability through online banking to change the date. I find this much more suitable although many of the companies seem reticent to agree.

The direct debit system is really crap, despite their so-called guarantee (“We guarantee to pay FredShred £6000 a week pension regardless”).

Agree 100% – it does need radically changing. After all, we are the customers!

Steddy, I think is right on so many grounds – surely if you want to pay as you have signed the contract you should be able to decide when they take your money? Rather then having it decided by someone else. Interesting it is possible to have the dates changed by it seems some companies will put a lot of effort into making this a lot harder then it should be. We the consumer need to stand up to this.

The MyTelegraph Blogging section is filled to the brim with fun loving fairly angry people, its a good read if you feel like also getting angy about stupid things.

Oh dear BB,

You have committed the original sin. Amicus (OTHER MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY) will be here any moment to remonstrate with you most vehemently.

They either decide to take the payment 1 week before you are to be paid, or if you are on a 4-week rota, 3 weeks after you have been paid. You jumbled your tense. )

I know what you mean though, when the wages barely cover the cost of living, the last thing anyone needs is a 30 quid letter from Fred the Shred et al telling you that you went £0.03 overdrawn for a period of 20 minutes and they will be charging you interest of a gazillion percent as well as the cost of the computer generated letter.

Steddy has it right, somewhere along the line everyone seems to have forgotten who the customer is.

Again total agreement from my side – Fred luckily has gone from our lives but there is a new generation out only to make as much money as possible. Its upsetting really to think that people now seem only out for ‘career’ rather then being a young person and enjoying and living a fulfilling non monetary life!

When you buy a house you are kind of under the impression that a house (especially if new build) should be free of defects, sure you might have some money left in your ever decreasing savings pot to fix any problems with your new house which you own courtesy of your first time buyer mortgage, which was kindly lent to you at a pretty high rate by some corporate bank.

After browsing a forum which is completely unrelated to this blog I came across some horrible pictures of the condition of a new build house, brought under the impression that it would be ‘free of defect’.

Firstly lets start with a window frame in the house -

A fairly nice 2.5 inch gash – not great eh!

As a former electrical apprentice I can quite honestly say that this is fairly dangerous especially for children or even adults who think they are clever – If the Mains is On and you stick your fingers behind here please do expect a shock…

Interesting all this would take to be fixed is two screws? Can’t organise a piss up in a brewery anyone?

This is perhaps the most bend plinth I have ever seen. I don’t even think words need to be used to describe this. Its clearly pretty bent.

Now here is the final image and for people who are unaware what Knotweed is, check it out here and to find out what it will do to your property try here

Basically this photo is something any prospective house should be scared off!

This house will need to be knocked down and coincidentally its a new build which had a survey done on it. Its worth checking stuff out properly.

So said head of the financial watchdog who has launched a scathing attack on the banking ‘fraternity’, mocking their refusal to accept that the financial industry needs radical change. Just a few weeks after declaring Bankers ‘Socially Useless’, Lord Turner delivered a so the Daily Mail calls it a ‘broadside’ at the Mansion House banquet which was attended by the great and good of the Square Mile.

He told them the industry’s collapse had been ‘cooked up’ on trading floors where workers earned exorbitant bonuses that regular victims of the recession could only dream of.
Only a huge transformation would allow banks to restore their reputations and rebuild their trust, such was the harm caused by their over-extension, he said.
The peer even went as far as to mock bankers for creating financial instruments that nobody wants or needs.

No one wakes up on a Saturday morning and says I think I’ll go out and buy one of those CDO squareds…

Continuing with a renewed vigour Lord Turner also said this:

British citizens will be burdened for many years with either higher taxes or cuts in public services because of an economic crisis… cooked up in trading rooms where many people earned annual bonuses equal to a lifetime’s earnings of some of those suffering the consequences.

The former banker refused to recant his recent statement regarding how socially useless bankers where citing that despite bank investments potentially becoming ‘boring’ that after the dreadful last year for the banking world – ‘there is a lot to be said for boring…’

About time someone stood up and made their voice and in this case someone who has at least been a banker and if he can see what they are doing to our country – then something must be really wrong finally the voice of reason in the corporate bank world.

The source is here