Not everyone in the banking industry is corrupt, a cheat and liar, but many are. The industry as a whole has a frightful attitude towards its customers (and indeed many of its employees) and in the UK they have far more power than the average company. Cutting through red tape and not telling the truth in court is par for their course.
No matter who stands against them they hold a sovereign power over them, indeed their power extends beyond that of a monarch or indeed a god, for who will risk everything they have worked for to stand against them?
One bank also sold insurance, to the prospect they uttered the often used sales technique “watch my lips”, I kid you not. This occurred when selling an “all encompassing and comprehensive unemployment package”. The feature of this policy that caused the potential buyer so much curiosity was “You will receive 75% of your income for up to three years no matter what causes the unemployment“. On the face of it that seems to be incredible yet to each of the following inquiries the bank manager and his insurance expert replied “That’s correct”:
- You get fired
- The company you work for go bankrupt
- Cannot continue on medical grounds
- Any reason other than the buyers own decision to leave
At this point the self revered bank insurance salesman smiles and says “Watch my lips” and he repeats that for any reason you lose your job through no choice of your own, the bank will pay 75% of your income for up to three years or until you get a new job.
But you need to qualify for benefit payments first.
Something they omit to tell you when selling the policy. To be eligible you need to be receiving government “benefits”. This turns out to be something you can get by going to the UK Welfare office. But benefits are not available to everyone, you have to have a good reason for not being able to work, like a steeplejack with no legs or a civil servant with a cold. Mere mortals do not qualify just because they lose a job. Without being a foreigner or wheelchair bound you can still apply for some assistance although your case is not going to be a priority. For this you need to complete a huge 36 page form with several supplements. Anyone with this particular banks insurance policy has good reason to give it a go, after all, 75% of your income makes it worth while.
Before you get the form you are asked what language you would like it. A strange question for an English receptionist (sorry, “Executive Employment Officer”) to ask another English person. Clearly fed up with replying “Its the rules, I have to ask” its tempting to reply Esperanto please.
First it asks name and some peculiar demographic information, for what purpose this might be is not clear, however much later in the form it becomes apparent that just a name, address and telephone number is not enough for the service to trip you up. The information gathered may be to maximise the number of things they can investigate and thus provide reasons why they cannot pay you benefits. “We note you own a new Range Rover not on HP, why don’t you sell it and live off the proceeds until you find a job?”
It takes a long time to answer all questions “to your best knowledge and ability” tinged with an “Inaccurate entries may be liable to prosecution” kind of form. One tends to want to get that stuff right and not guess. However without intending to pry, yet still feel like you are cheating, it’s difficult to avoid noticing that everyone else who gets this form spends less than 10 minutes before they return to the queue (and some of them noting they had already queued up all morning to get the damn form feel they should be able to ‘hover’ over other people as they speak to their “Executive Employment Officer” trying to get their form in the Inbox or get some simple question answered.
The conscientious form-filler will of course need to take it home for proper investigation, to ensure the truth, in it’s brutal naked clarity, is presented to the welfare office. After several days of investigation, tallying of your worth, accurate household cash-flow and budget is prepared and duly completed on the form you are ready for a second days queueing. An early start is advisable as after about 1:00 pm the office becomes flooded with people and often they are not a happy lot. “My social ain’t arrived”, “You scumbags forgot to add my rent” and quite a few with choice words that not many would repeat (or understand).
With patience your turn will come and with luck you will be facing one of Britain’s finest civil servants who has mastered the art of complete apathy. I say with luck because its more likely you will not.
From your case you extract your notebook and open to the page with carefully considered questions regarding the completion of the form. For you, as a citizen wishing to ensure you not only abide by the letter of the law wish to ensure you abide by the spirit too. It is not your intention to waste any-one’s time so your questions are ordered correctly and you also note where to go and what to do based upon the answer:
QUESTION: The documentation says I must include water charges broken down to a monthly price whether I pay annually, quarterly or monthly. It does not ask for this to include sewerage charges which are billed by a separate company for my house. Should I include this in the water charges (as is usually the case) or should I show them as separate?
A1) If include enter the value £33.25 on page 18, section 3, paragraph ii
A2) If exclude enter the value £26.88 on page 18, section 3, paragraph ii and ask: Where should I include the monthly cost of £6.37 for sewerage?
After your notebook and pen (and a huff from your inquisitor) you extract the nearly completed and highly accurate 36 page inquiry form. A hand appears under the glass in anticipation.
The form is a rude inquiry into your life. It contains personal information that you would not share with best friends, perhaps even your spouse. It is accurate to the minutest details and as someone who strives for truth and fair play it is really of far more important than your CV.
For someone showing signs of boredom toward your offering is a little depressing. OK, so you don’t expect them to be sanguine about your effort, you have to admit to yourself that’s not really what you would expect in the best of situations. But a complete lack of interest hurts.
Imagine then how you would feel if the paper is roughly dragged through the silver tray below the glass and its nice crisp clean form is irreverently twisted and tugged so that one of the pages rip and the others become ruffled? The Executive Employment Officer then rubs her hands on her jeans presumably to remove some kind of dirt and proceeds to try re-flatten your work nearly completing the rip and removal of a page in the process.
A man with a placid nature and without the remotest hint of violence would be hard pushed not to ram his fist through the glass and grab this creature by the neck and pull out her eye-balls. Which explains the bullet-proof glass you find in these places (and perhaps the somewhat loud and frequent outbursts of expletives hinted at earlier).
Still, assuming you have considered the alternatives and decide instead to put on a feeble smile and just wait while the Officer reads through your documentation, you will be disheartened to hear the real pain of your entire journey is about to begin.
“Why are you applying for benefits?”
It is an intriguing question isn’t it? Having spent your time carefully reading the instructions and working your way through their mammoth inquiry form it has to be agreed that you are made well aware that benefits are only for those people that need them. We all need money and it is tempting to consider the enormous amount of tax you have paid over the years as justification for your application. You are here to reclaim just a tiny fraction of what you are entitled too.
But then you remember the famous Kennedy speech “Ask not what your country can do for you…” OMG, your feet feel cold and you instantly become aware that you must be a leech, just out for what you can get. In front of this government official you suddenly feel small and insignificant. You ARE wasting her time.
Hold on: Shake yourself. She is supposed to be helping you, she is no more an Employee Executive Officer than she is your employee. You pay her wages, she owes you service. But you are polite. You regain your composure, check your notes, skip through all the questions until you find a reference to section 7g. In your notes you read:
“There is a request in section 7g for information of insurance policies that may effect the result of your income based upon any benefits paid”
QUESTION: Does this refer to insurance payments that will be paid before or after the receipt of benefits?
You consider your reply but before you can formulate the correct response you receive an irritable “Come on, I do not have all day, there are other people who really need benefits to see”.
At this point the officer makes it clear what her opinion of you and your claim is. By virtue of her opinion you are a leech, you are taking up her valuable time, you are not worthy of her attention and she is already looking over your shoulder to see who might be next.
And her opinion is based upon seeing no more than just 3 pages of your form and less than 30 seconds of her attention. It is tempting at this point to lay battle with her and force the point that this has nothing to do with a desire to defraud welfare. As a gatekeeper to government funds she clearly is formidable, even if it is misguided, but at this point the effort of taking her on is futile. The best thing to do is request the return of your document and if she refuses then thank yourself for having the good sense to take a copy for your files.
Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best
thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact;
to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is
better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it,
to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire
than to destroy them.Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles
is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists
in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
Now is the time to find someone else, someone willing to explain why your request for benefits has been refused. A letter to the Home Secretary perhaps? Maybe not, but certainly a higher authority, and one that will take note of the real situation rather than the one presented in the huge benefit form, because the truth is you neither need nor want to receive any financial aid from the government, you have already made sensible arrangements. Buried deep in the small print you find that all your careful planning is dependent on one thing, a government department that will never help you.
The £115,000 equity you once held in your house was transferred to a directors account to start your business, the fancy cars once a prize for your position in a corporation have gone and you now drive sensible frugal replacements. The 500,000 shares which last sold at 50p a shot are locked up in B shares which are unlikely to be released in your lifetime. The mortgage, now higher than ever before, is eating up a huge overdraft facility in the very bank that sold you the insurance plan to begin with. Because you cannot get benefits you cannot get the insurance, because you cannot get the insurance you cannot pay your mortgage, because you cannot pay your mortgage you are homeless, because you are homeless you have no where to call home and your clothes do not appear as fresh as they used to be, because you cannot dress smartly you cannot get the interview to the jobs you were trained for. But its not all doom and gloom. Leave it a couple of weeks and should you try for benefits again you will be delighted by the wonderful and appreciative response you get toward your request once you look the part, at last they can look down on you, take pity and wallow in your gratitude as they feed you peppercorn.
In the next installment
In the next installment I will cover the bank that lied in court to save face and care less for the life it destroyed in doing so. I may even name them for while they won their case I believe the judge was an imbecile because he would not allow the defendent to speak. The judge refused to listen to a defence and acted as if the bank bribed or blackmailed him. The real crime was the defendant was given horrendous advice and worse still, had to pay for it.
