Blood suckers
September 14th 2009 06:15
The Australian Bankers’ Association has updated and republished a consumer booklet called "Smarter Banking: Make the Most of your Money". The booklet can be viewed online here but I wouldn't bother. I had a look and nowhere in the booklet does the ABA call retail banks sharks, piranhas or soulless, heartless money grubbers.
I have a friend who recently achieved something about which she had been dreaming for years: she paid off everything owing on her credit card. Hallelujah. Light of heart and jaunty of step, she danced into her nearest bank branch and threw that odious piece of plastic on the counter.
"I am credit card debt free," she announced. "Please cancel this account!"
No, they told my friend. We can't. A credit card account can not be closed at a bank branch. You have to ring one of the bank's card centre consultants and do it through them.
Just to show how much they cared for their customers, they provided a phone number. Free of charge.
Why does the bank refuse to allow customers to close a credit card account at a branch, and force them to ring a "consultant"? And what is it, do you think, that the consultant says when contacted?
The answer is simple: the bank will try to talk you out of cancelling your credit card account.
They will couch it in positive sentiments, such as, "Congratulations on being debt-free and financially unrestrained, but have you considered that you may need the card again one day in the event of an emergency or the sudden desire to get away on a holiday or buy something irresistible?"
Retail banks do not share the joy of consumers who fight their way out of debt. Retail banks, indeed, are the implacable enemy in this fight, charging obscene interest rates for a product which they market mercilessly under the guise of consumer convenience. Retail banks ruthlessly target stretched income earners and push, shove, cajole, entice and lure them into a black pit of high-cost debt.
Wage earners around the world are struggling with the highest rate of personal debt in history and debt continues to grow. It has been created almost entirely by the heartless, soulless, blood-sucking sharks which are the retail banking industry.
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