Packaged current accounts: did banks not learn from PPI?

I suppose this will result in a new stream of annoying TV ads by the ambulance chasing solicitors brigade.

CAVEAT EMPTOR I say.

Customers ARE pound signs... to the banks, then the solicitors.

Surely if anyone is stupid enough to buy something they don't want then this will give them a lesson for the future.......is it really neccessary for a bunch of overpaid (with our taxes!) nannies to insist they are compensated.

If it is then how much can I have for buying a ghastly pizza that was described as delicious on the box?!

I have one of these accounts & believe I benefit from being a car driver - the cost of my package covers my AA cover which at the last count I paid £175/pa. The monthly charge more than covers this, as well as phone insurance. I also have travel insurance which I have never claimed on, so no idea whether or not it actually works.

If customers know what they are getting, then they should decide whether or not they are benefitting!

I wish the FSA concentrated on sorting out the huge salaries & equally huge bonus culture within the banking sector - that should be their primary job, but we know that they cannot do anything about this, so they just throw more balls into the air to distract everyone.

When the UK government handed over the bail out money to the banks, why did they not make sure that they had some leverage about how banks behave - in view of the latest figures published, can banks really continue to justify the salaries/bonuses it pays top execs?

Almost the entire financial services are rotten to the core - any product you buy, my advice would be buyer beware! I have been looking at ethical investments, & how can I determine if my money is not being used to sell/buy more arms & weapons of mass destruction. Every company has a subsidiary & it is very difficult to get to the core owners. There is no guarantee that your investment does not end up in projects to denude rain forests, or take land away from peasant farmers so that multi nationals can pillage the resources, with very little income feeding back to the local populations across the world.

There maybe some corporations out there, who operate like John Lewis, where workers get to benefit, just as much as the owners?

Banking products are designed by brain dead marketing types who have no understanding of consumer legislation or of anything much beyond making a pretty package and teaching their staff to lie by omission if not commission.

Talking of commission... As long as the short term bonus culture continues bankers at every level will act in their own very short term interests with no thought for their customers or for the long term interests of their own organisation.

Banning commission and separating banking functions such as the provision of money transmission services from sales of insurance, pensions, credit cards and such would solve a lot of problems. Ban counter clerks from trying to sell useless crap and from receiving commission or any kind of sales target related bonus. But allow a bank branch to have separate sections for other services with clear signs directing customers to them.

Anyone operating on commission should be required to wear a big button saying so. Just as an aide memoir for the dimwitted among us.

Preying on the feeble minded is what selling's all about these days. It's not just banks (current whipping boys) - how about cosmetics companies flogging anti-age products to the vain and vulnerable? Slimming products? Online betting? Low cost flights? Pay day loans? etc etc..

J-S B

I have some sympathy with your point. But we have reached the point where regulation is a handicap to the rest of us who have functioning brains. In fact we reached it long ago.

Beyond the requirements of physical safety and countering fraud, instead of regulating products, we should regulate consumers. If consumers had to carry around certificates of competence and those without had to resign their decision making to others (i.e. were not let out without their keepers) life would be much simpler.

On the stock market before dealing in complicated products like covered warrants or traded options you have to declare that you are either a qualified professional or have relevant experience and wealth. We don't let people drive cars without passing a test.

An even greater improvement would be to either give more votes to those with the certificates of competence or remove them from the feeble minded. Imagine a world where it didn't matter what lies the Sun peddled to its readers because they didn't have the vote!

"Thick as mince" customers + claim culture + Peston-alism = today's world.

There is a massive difference between being deliberately mis-sold something e.g. with key aspects/constraints omitted or misrepresented....and a customer who frankly can't be arsed to take personal responsibility.

There is no mention (....yet?!) of these accounts being passed off as anything other than fee-based - whether as an up-sell or to a new customer.

If "victim's" thought processes are "I wish there was a fee-free account but I don't want to ask because....." or "OK, I'll choose to pay for the enhanced version...and not bother to find out through any means available to me if I get (at the very least) value for money" then they deserve everything they (don't) get.

What worries me more is what these people are doing in their non-banking time.

Are these shrinking violets, day-dreamers & "key facts" avoiders operating heavy machinery near you!?