Banks adverts on tv

Bank adverts make me sick. The way they make out like banks are our friends there to look after our finance for us so we don't have to. You can trust them and getting a loan or opening a bank account is a fun casual thing to do. Like those awefull patronising Halifax adverts or the helpful banking ones. How can they have the bare face cheek to melee adverts like that! I would love to be given the chance to make an advert for a bank.
Halifax "we give you treetreetreetree of our shoes"

 

There should really only be one standard template for a bank advert. It might go something like this:

Are you sick of being ripped off by your current bank? Are you sick of earning 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% interest on your savings while your bank is playing with your money, gambling it for potentially huge returns, and potentially huge losses, so that someone else can knock about in yachts and ferraris while you struggle to just get by? Are you sick of spending half an hour on the phone, only to finally get through to someone who can't understand what you're asking?

There is another way.

Switch to us, and then you can continue to experience all of the above, but more than that. We are the bank with a difference. Our name is different. Our website is different. And most importantly, our logo is different. Switch to the different bank today and you could be looking at a different logo on your statements within a month.

 

LOL!

 

In the interest of fairness though, and all joking aside, for several years I had some of my accounts with Nationwide Building Society, and some, including my main current account with a well known international local bank. I've NEVER been happy with the bank, and despite months ago zeroing all my accounts with them and asking them to close it all down, I'm unfortunately still with them, although they did recently send me a threatening letter saying that unless I paid something into one of my accounts they'd close it all down:DOH:

The building society on the other hand has yet to really annoy me. Ok, one of their counter staff managed to lose all my mortgage paperwork which caused a few tense days while my solicitor negotiated with the vendor for extra time, but that was a simple human mistake, and when I phoned the head office where they cross the T's and dot the I's on the mortgage paperwork (it's actually a good sign that I was even given the direct number for such people), they actually pulled out all the stops to get the paperwork through asap.

There is a major, major difference between a bank and a building society, and it all comes down to the type of legal entity that they are.

A bank is a public limited company, which means it is floated on the stock market. The board of directors have a legal responsibility to act in the best interest of the shareholders and attempt to make a sustained profit. That means they have to be profit driven, which in turn means the customer is nothing more than an asset to be milked.

A building society is not a PLC. They are not required by law to satisfy any rich shareholders (in fact they don't really have shareholders, or customers, they have members). Its kind of like a club almost, like a giant, corporate credit union. I'm sure they can be horrible too, but they are not legally compelled to be horrible like banks are.

 

It must be terrible to be one of these banking 'supremos' - always under attack from the press, the government, the populace and Uncle Tom Cobley et al..........As they trot home in their chauffeur driven limos to enjoy another bottle of Veuve Cliquot before dinner followed by perhaps a glass or two of a Premier Cru Bordeaux.

Should reincarnation be an option I certainly could have a stab at that sort of job!

Cynicism?

 

I'm sure it's only a matter of time! Maybe when they finally get round to mentioning to you the account that you've been patiently saving into month by month in the hope of a nice bonus for obedience has been earning zero for ages and would have been just as well off under the mattress.

Good points.