----< Mike Hancock MP fights for customers >-------
Financial website MrsCohen is reporting that Abbey National will write to Portsmouth MP Mike Hancock MP after he tabled an Early Day Motion slamming Grabby for its treatment of repossession shortfall customers.

And we can see why. Hancock quickly found 33 other MPs to sign the strongly worded motion. Read it for yourself at:
http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/ref=1102

According to a MrsCohen story at:
http://www.mrscohen.com/campaignsdebt/default.asp?section=5&vid=19248&fst=&page=1
a "very concerned" Abbey National is going to write to Mr Hancock. Doubtless, Grabby National will tell him how it is prepared to cut its debt claims in half (when we know it drops them to less than 10% if it meets any serious customer resistance.)

Doubtless it will also tell him how fair it is and how much it cares about its customers.

You might like to drop Mike Hancock a line to let him know that Grabby's treatment of you has been pretty shabby. To email him directly, hit this link, type your message and hit "submit":
http://www.locata.co.uk/cgi-bin/webdriver?MIval=commons_mail&id=354

And, if you're looking for MPs that support mortgage customers, here are the names of the other MPs that have signed Hancock's EDM so far:

Cummings/John
Russell/Bob
Dobbin/Jim
Jones/Nigel
Clapham/Michael
Illsley/Eric
George/Andrew
Corbyn/Jeremy
Cable/Vincent
Drew/David
Cunliffe/Lawrence
Clarke/Eric
Cox/Tom
Cryer/Ann
Smith/Angela
Michie/Bill
Barnes/Harry
Simpson/Alan
Stunell/Andrew
Davey/Edward
McFall/John
Tonge/Jenny
Brand/Peter
Campbell/Ronnie
Trickett/Jon
Cook/Frank
Meale/Alan
McCafferty/Chris
McNamara/Kevin
Henderson/Ivan
Walley/Joan
Mudie/George
Etherington/Bill

----< DPA view on Income & Expenditure forms >---------
If you have entered your partner's income and expenditure details on a form provided by a lender or its lawyer, you may have a case against them.

It depends on whether the lender (or its lawyer/debt collector) said you were required to give your partner's details too. If it did tell you that you were required to give your partners details, and if you did go on to supply them, the lender probably committed a breach of the Data Protection Act. And that means you can complain about your lender to the Data Protection Commission.... and that means you'll have something else your lender will want to avoid seeing come out in court if it tries to sue you over a shortfall.

In other words, it will help discourage your lender from ever sueing your for your alleged shortfall debt.

We learned this from the spouse of a reader, who complained to the DPC that Abbey National was pressuring his wife to reveal how much he earned so that it could decide whether to sue her or not for a repossession shortfall. Here's what the DPC said:

"As I understand the situation your wife has not, in fact, provided any personal data relating to you to Abbey National and Eversheds. If that is the case they cannot have unfairly obtained information relating to you from your wife whether or not it is possible to argue that they sought to do so unfairly. You are quite right that if Abbey National has expressly stated that your wife is "required" to provide this information, and thus unequivocally inferred that she is under a legal duty to do so, then that would certainly be misleading and if they had obtained such information as a consequence of such an approach then it is likely that the obtaining ("processing") of such data would be inherently unfair."

So if you have supplied personal information about your spouse under threat of legal action or even *implied* threat of legal action, complain to the Data Protection Commission now.

Just write a short letter outlining what happened to:

Data Protection Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

----< How public relations beats customer relations >----
Ever wondered why MPs, judges, and indeed most people in authority seem to be on the lenders' side? Here's why. Taken from a Sunday Times report of 8 October 2000, this excerpt details a leaked Barclays plan to improve how the public see the bank. There are two things to note about these recommendations:

1. These are Barclays' solutions to being considered an expensive bank that favours shareholders and directors over customers.

2. They clearly show who a modern bank tries to influence rather than change its customer service level.

Excerpt starts>
Steps to rebuild the Barclays name include a scheme to regain favour in areas where the bank has closed branches and lost influence as a result.

Ten model employees will be parachuted into rural hot spots to charm local dignitaries. The agents, dubbed "the smoothies" by insiders, will be recruited for their "social skills", says the report. They will be given titles conferring the "appropriate authority for liaising with MPs, MEPs and the media". They will infiltrate Rotary clubs and other groups to create a positive presence, say sources.

"The [agent] would need to have strong communication skills," says the report, which puts a £1m total cost on the project.

"[He] would be a modern manager with the ability to project the new face of financial services, always being on brand and on message."

Other schemes include:

* Compiling a database of good news items so that one positive story about Barclays is released every month.

* Making media-friendliness a "core skill requirement" for newly- recruited senior executives, while ensuring that Barrett's [Barclays' chief executive officer] future exposure to the media is "managed carefully".

* Establishing "a proper audit trail for the receipt, review and release of all external and internal communications" to prevent leaks.
< excerpt ends

----< Customers 305, Banks 14,278 >----
We pronounce the banks the winners!

Despite finding for the customer in only 305 of the 14,583 complaints submitted to him over the last year, even the Banking Ombudsman is speaking out against bank practices.

Banking Ombudsman David Thomas said mortgages and particularly endowments were a leading source of customer complaints. And it's hardly surprising. Thomas said he had seen evidence of banks giving misleading advice to potential customers (a practice that the Home Repossession Page calls "misselling").

The Guardian is reporting the story at:
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,401655,00.html

And if you've wondered why the banks come off far better than customers when it comes to seeking help from the ombudsman, you might like to consider how many directors these organisations share. See the "Changes to the site" section immediately below for more details.

----< Changes to the site >------------------------------
Details of the directorships of:
the Banking Ombudsman, and
the Building Society Ombudsman
or should we say:
the Banking Ombudsman Ltd, and
the Building Society Ombudsman Ltd

It makes interesting reading and is in the Who Helps? section under Free Help.

[ends]

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