Banks- or should I say the lack of them!

[austina40sam]

I dont know if it is just me or weather anyone else on here is effected or not.

I go into my local bank the other day (im with barclays). They have a great big sign on the bank which reads "why wait in a que when you can do it all online!" Then the bank were unable to do what i asked as they had problems with there softwhere! As a result I had to go back the next day.

I go back the next day and they did what I asked and then they told me that from the 9th of August they would no longer be serving customers if they were withdrawing less then £300. These days i only tend to withdraw about £230 but im one of these people that think cash is king and I use it for everything. They said to me that I would have to either use a cash piont or use the post office. 3 days later and I have a letter saying that my local barclays bank would be closing for good on the 29th of Oct.

Maybe its just me but I think Banks are such an important thing to have in a town and i think it is very sad to see them all closing. I dont do banking online and I wouldt want too. I like to be served my a real human being! It will have to be the post office for me from now on.

[austina40sam]

I dont know if you saw Monty but it was in the paper the other day that Barlcalys have made somthing like 4.6 billion in profits in the last 6 months! I thnk it is terrible how they have treated there customers.

[Mike Hodgson]

When I complained re lack of branches I was told "you can do it all on your phone " .Now that does annoy me ,they presume everyone has a smart phone or a computer where in truth many do not and no allowance is made for the fact.

[austina40sam]

I know just what you mean Mike. The banks say the same to me. But a phone cannot withdraw you out a large sum of money when you want it. Say I went to buy another car tomorrow, it will now be much harder to withdraw out a large sum of money and then the people behind the desk look at you like your stupid for doing it. Okay I know I could write a cheque for the given amount but for me I like to count out each note and see where my hard earnt money is going. Sadly a lot of people don't think like this now.

[exlkrs]

I rarely use a branch, but went to pay a cheque in last month (a rarity now I know), they were sniffy about that, and surprised me by saying 'Oh, just photograph it and upload the photo!!'

[Dave the rave]

"Photograph it" ......really Upload it where though

[Stoney13]

there was five banks in my village i say village but now its more like a town dam builders and greedy council, any way back to the point of this we now have one which i dont think will be there much longer, the town nearest to me is wsm which have closed two banks recently due to covid so they say " when staff was working at home" this is the new norm

[Keith Bennett]

The banking industry is approaching very thin ice when it comes to relying increasingly heavily on electronics. When the Roman empire was at its height, citizens from all over the empire were obliged to send 'tributes' to Rome (a form of taxation). But over the course of only twenty years or so, those citizens in far-off places (like the UK) began to notice that if they didn't send the loot, nobody seemed to notice. The slowing of tributes began to impact on the running of the empire and, as money in Rome started to become more scarce, so the services were forced to constrict with the inevitable consequence that the empire's decline accellerated to the point where the entire empire collapsed.

So with today's banks: Mike rightly points out that many people don't possess smart phones or "even" computers. The point may come where the utilities will find increasing degrees of bad debt as customers simply can't transer money. Once the chancers realise that, too, then they themselves will not pay. The utilites will have to resort more and more on expensive debt collection agencies, and so the downward spiral will continue.

Happy days!

[exlkrs]

Arghh! Had some cash to pay in today. Visited 3 branches of Barclays that were definitely there last month, now all signs that they ever existed are erased! Fourth attempt, at larger town, counter service now 10-2 only, otherwise use automated stuff. It was five to two, and they were well peed off I insisted on paying in at the counter!

[Keith Bennett]

See, naughty boy - shouldn't have any cash; how do "they" know where it came from? Once we're all tied into total electronic banking, the era of cash-in-hand will have been completely eradicated and there'll be an accurate financial picture of each individual's income and outgoings so the taxation authorities can charge accordingly.

That's why the utilities keep pushing for smart meters, especially the electric boys. Those meters can report home every half-hour, so "they" will be able to alter the fee at will, charging more at certain times of day (rather like the Economy Meters which feed night-store meters) or charging less for certain classes of customers (and - probably - load the account of those, usually good payers like the elderly, whom "they" know will stump up without demur).

NatWest keep bombarding me with requests for my smart phone number (ain't got one, don't want one) so they can "improve the quality of our banking experience". Now, I'm sure the poor impoverished wankers - sorry, bankers - want to save as much money on running the banks and collect more money from their customers.

For example Bar & I refuse to have any direct debits - something the yanks dreamed up years ago. The whole idea is predicated upon lethargy; the providers rely on customers not bothering if the charge creeps up gradually because what isn't noticed. We're gonna make damned sure those collectors work for our money until we're actually forced to comply.

Here's a précis from Paul Lewis's article in the current Saga magazine:
"Bank branches are closing, cash machine are disappearing, and shops and cafés are increasingly saying Card Payments Only. In 2017 debit cards overtook cash as the most popular way to pay. By 2020 a quarter of all payments were contactless - nearly ten billion of them. At the same time, cash payments have declined by three-quarters from more than 20 billion in 2013 to barely five billion in 2020 and falling.

"Not everyone can use plastic. More than a million adults in the UK do not have a current account. A similar number have their pensions and benefits paid direct into a Post Office Card Account which is used to take the cash out of a Post Office. But that system will end in November.

"There is concern that the network of free access to our own money will no longer be viable. Because of the pandemic, visits to cash machines plummeted when the first lockdown began and are now barely half what they were two years ago. Remember that you can still get cash from a Post Office using your debit card... but my [Paul Lewis] summing up advice is that everyone should prepare for cash becoming harder to get and less easy to spend, so open a bank account for your pension to be paid into... and don't be afraid to pay with a contactless debit card. If it is stolen or mislaid, your bank should bear any losses. It really will make your life easier in the post-pandemic 21st century."

Us A40-ites - indeed anyone interested in older machinery and ways of life - will have to amend our ways and, even if you have thousands of tenners stashed under the bed, along with that front wing and Mk2 petrol tank, they will quite quickly become worthless. Notice, too, that in the article above, not once are credit cards mentioned: "they" want to ensure that we are totally screwed down tight to the money we hold or earn or spend. That way, the totalitarian society by the wealthy ruling class will be well on its way to fruition.