Banks Are Thieves

How to get your money back with interest/compensation.  Follow the instructions on the Choice website, but then add this.  If you ring the bank or other financial institution, you say words along the lines of “the ..(type of fee/charges)…fees and charges your bank has charged to my……. account over the last (up to 6 years) totals $ …..  I demand that this amount be reversed back into my account today, plus interest (roughly average out the interest rate on the account over the period the illegal fees/charges were deducted and multiply that rate by half the total deducted; this will give you a fairly accurate figure), and because if I took your bank to the General Division of the Local Court (NSW) (titles of courts may vary interstate) - I would ask for and be awarded punitive damages, I also demand ten times the amount you illegally took from my account as compensation.”  This exact thing has been done - please see 2nd Newsletter of 18/01/08 "Clobbering Banks".

This can be added as a paragraph to your letter if you are writing rather than phoning.

If the bank does not agree, put the point that if you do actually go to court, you will contact Today Tonight who would probably be only too happy to run the story, and it will cost the bank 100s of thousands of dollars more than if they simply paid you, due to lost customers, other customers claiming back fees etc.  Banks operate in a very blinkered pragmatic way; the way to do something that costs their bottom line least is the way they will take.  Paying you $2500, for example, might, to you, seem a lot of money, but to a financial institution that makes/steals $3.5 billion a year in profit, it’s small change.

You may also wish to firmly but politely point out that “…since your bank is well aware that its fees and charges are illegal due to their being excessive, and your bank KNOWS that its credit card contracts (and some others) are illegal due to “insufficient certainty of terms”, your bank is committing the criminal offence of attempted FRAUD (a variety of theft under various theft acts) whenever it seeks to deceive customers into believing that these fees and charges are legal and therefore must be paid, and fraud itself if it accepts payment.”

I like the comment about the changes in rules the Reserve Bank instigated.  The "REFORM" this woman is writing about has cost the customer 50 cents per use at a foreign ATM for a NAB account holder, nothing for the CBA and the others are yet to set their figures!  Glenn STEPHENS, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, made the comment on television at the time that it would cost each bank, for this foreign used service, about 10 cents!  (Isn't it odd that "REFORM" produces higher charges! - NOT!!)

The only time the banks take any notice of the Reserve Bank is when interest rates are raised.  When they're lowered they please themselves!!!

This is the reason why this site is called BanksAreThieves.org

All contact details are available on each bank/other financial institution’s website – many feature freecall 1800 numbers, or click here.then click on 'members' in index, left hand side of page.

Please note that there are maximum amounts claimable in these tribunals. In the N.S.W. CTTT it is currently (as at 17th March 2011) $30,000.

Also, please think and obtain legal advice BEFORE commencing legal proceedings, because under this country’s legal system, being legally in the right unfortunately does not guarantee that you will win.