Monthly Archives: February 2015

Apathy International. Does anyone really expect HSBC or wealthy tax evaders to be prosecuted?

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I had an interesting conversation on twitter last night with someone I don’t know from Canada – although I think he is British. The very topical subject was “why are wealthy people guilty of tax evasion not prosecuted?” And right from the start of the conversation my twitter friend, let’s call him Bill, made the point that in his view it would cost so much money and take so much time to prosecute them all, it would be counter productive. The cost would be more than the gain.

Bill is probably right. Tracking down the thousands of people identified by the Swiss Whistle blower (and let’s face it, as he says, his list is the tip of the iceberg) would cost a fortune and would probably result in very lengthy criminal trials where the only beneficiaries would be the lawyers. And Bill compared the situation to the gun amnesty used in the US. Hand in your unlicensed gun and we’ll say no more about it. Here the equivalent would be throw the tax man a few thousand pounds voluntarily and we’ll call it a day. I say a few thousand because, in the same way it wouldn’t be cost effective to prosecute these people, I can’t imagine HMRC have the manpower or even the will to do full on investigations into how much is actually owed?

My point was (and is) even considering the logistics of this situation, how can a democratic country ditch the law in the case of one section of society because it’s not cost effective to enforce law? Tax evasion is against the law and nowhere does it say “unless you are part of a rich minority who has been advised by your bank to shunt your money offshore.”

I also made the point HMRC will go through hell and high water to prosecute so called benefit cheats or even people on low incomes who may have been overpaid and then can’t pay it back. Similarly SMEs will be hounded for perceived VAT or tax issues and, if the man in the street doesn’t get all his tax returns in precisely on time and to their satisfaction, HMRC will be very efficient in sending out demands for what they calculate is owed or hefty fines. They also have no compunction about prosecuting for a few hundred pounds if they feel it is due. And that happens to thousands of people.

Bill made the point it doesn’t make any difference whether you cheat the tax man of £50.00 or £5M – it’s still against the law. I agree. So why do I have this horrible feeling you are less likely to be penalised for the £5M than the £50? And the same seems to be true of money laundering or other economic crimes. Big banks money laundering for drug cartels just get hefty fines paid by their shareholders but no one goes to jail. Here’s an extract from my book about HBOS (to be published in the dim and distant future) on these criminal but curiously acceptable transactions:

“And by the way, how does that happen? It’s common knowledge now that certain banks have done these totally illegal deals and, yet again, no one in any bank is to blame and instead, the shareholders have paid massive fines as a penalty for bankers conduct. But if no one’s to blame, how do the deals get done? Do the bosses of the drug cartels phone a special ‘money laundering’ call centre and listen to an anonymous voice giving various options: “Please dial 1 for drug deals, 2 for arms deals or 3 for off shore tax evasion. To hear these options again, please dial 4.” Or do the Banks have departments which deal specifically with these ‘dodgy transactions’ and where the staff work in the secure knowledge no one will ever go to jail for criminal deals because bankers are above the law?”

Then there’s other proven fraudulent products like IRHP – another fine. Out and out asset theft from SMEs – another fine. PPI, EFG, SFLG, it’s becoming like a game show – think of an acronym and the contestants get to guess the appropriate meaning and the applicable fine. Winner gets two weeks in the Caymen Islands all expenses (and of course taxes) paid by the FCA. But if you or I were to commit any deliberately fraudulent act to turn a quick profit, you could expect and get the full force of the law to come into force.

However, taxes and financial crime aside, what really disturbed me about my twitter conversation which, by the way, I thoroughly enjoyed because I love a good debate, was the apathy involved. While Bill agreed with me we shouldn’t have a two tier justice system, his very logical approach was, as Tony Soprano would say, wattayagonnado? We are where we are and there’s little we can do about it – apparently.

I am pretty sure the members of SME Alliance would not agree. Most of them (me included) have been victims of the many and varied banking scams which have devastated SMEs. Most of us have been fighting for justice for what seems like a lifetime and sometimes pretty much is and we are, putting it politely, extremely angry at the way banks, who have caused us so much damage, are never penalised except with shareholders fines. Neither are they obliged by the regulators to repair the damage done. So when we hear about people with very healthy off shore bank accounts, organised by their bank, becoming immune from prosecution, we are anything but apathetic, we’re furious. It’s another slap in the face of the British justice system and another reason we are losing faith in it.

But, being honest, I think back to my life before the consequences of fraudulent bankers and their associates kicked in – was I even aware of our two tier justice system? Admittedly inequality has got worse since the so called credit crunch but, if my business hadn’t been sabotaged and had instead fulfilled its full potential and made millions of pounds, would I be seriously concerned about the conduct of the likes of HSBC and its tax dodging clients? Would I be calling for prosecutions? Or would I be taking the rather detached and very logical approach Bill takes?

We have a saying in our house, “you can’t not know what you do know.” And that’s a shame because the things I now know after 7 years of investigating bank fraud and social injustice, very often stop me sleeping at night. I didn’t sleep much last night thinking it’s possible a massive segment of society may be so oblivious to what is happening to democracy or, more likely, just trying to get on with their own reduced circumstances in austerity Britain, they don’t even care about off shore accounts in Switzerland or Monaco. But I think (or should I say I hope) I would have been aware, albeit to a lesser degree, of the increasing dangers our democracy faces even if I hadn’t experienced the consequences personally. I’m a lyricist and a poet and I grew up listening to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez – so the spirit of protest has always been there. But who knows? As long as the comfortable remain comfortable, will they rock the boat? Hmmn. While apathy is, on the one hand a powerful tool for the State, it’s also a powerful tool for the individual conscience.

“If there is nothing I can do about injustice, no one can blame me for doing nothing.” It’s a scary concept but one that has helped permit every shameful human catastrophe.

Anyway, I don’t know what the resolution is to the HSBC tax evaders or the many other tax evaders who were no doubt advised by other banks. Quite frankly, I think those banks must be bricking it in case their own whistle blowers come forward. I agree with Bill, it is impractical to think HMRC can or will prosecute all of these people. But, and remembering this year sees the 800th birthday of the Magna Carta, if we are truly a democratic society, I cannot see how Government, or the appropriate authority, cannot prosecuted them? After all, one person has been prosecuted and surely that has set the precedent? And what was so special about that case? Seems a bit harsh – thousands do it but only one pays the price.

I wouldn’t like to be running this Country. Whatever good intentions any of our politicians have, there seems to be an endless barrage of obstacles in the way of good governance and most of those involve the necessity to compromise and close their eyes to the kind of corruption that is swamping the Country. Hard, I imagine, not to just go with the flow for the 5 years they are in power. And hardest for those in power as opposed to those in opposition where it’s easy to shout foul (especially if you have a short memory)!

If anyone thinks they have the answer to the current problem – is it possible to prosecute every criminal act in the financial system and the associated activities like tax evasion, I’d be happy to hear it and I’m sure many politicians would as well. If we did take this route, we’d have to build a lot more prisons because financial crime, without doubt, is more epidemic or contagious than the flu and we have no jab for it. We seem to have no cure for corruption.

I leave you with a poem I wrote in 2003. I rarely inflict poetry on my blog readers but this one seems entirely appropriate.

Apathy International

I am a member of

Apathy International.

I am working my way up in the company

and should shortly become

a bored member.

Membership was free

and just slipped onto my shoulders

during a raging storm,

like a comfortable old raincoat.

The effects are almost unnoticeable

as is everything else now.

And, as in all such large organisations,

only non members receive active attention,

so I fully expect to disappear completely and painlessly any day now.

(Which I really can’t worry about).

But late at night I wake up

terrified

as a distant but unfiltered image of raw gaping wounds stabs me

and I can hear the hideous cackle of the devil’s favourite shareholders

and I recognise the voice of our beloved CEO crooning

and I think I will implode with panic.

But in the grey reasoned morning light

I think –

what could I do? Nothing.

So I don’t –

except to gently fondle my membership badge.

© Nikki Turner 2003

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25 pointers on how to get a bank to take your complaint seriously – and how to keep going until they do.

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I found this document last night when I was trailing through old files. I wrote this back in June 2012 and decided it might be helpful to some people so I’ve given it a slight update. It’s an extract from a book I was writing called ‘A consumer guide to dealing with banks, bailiffs and other bullies.’ Maybe I will finish it one day.

June 2012 was a very tough time for Paul and I and our family because in April we’d been visited by a senior enforcement officer of the FSA (now FCA) who insisted we should tell Lloyds Banking Group what we wanted after all we’d been through (regarding matters related to HBOS Reading). He implied the Bank would finally compensate us and he said the FSA knew we were very entitled to compensation. But it didn’t happen. We wrote to the bank and they wrote back with the V sign – as in “vattene fanculo” which is a very rude colloquial Italian phrase to say get lost. So, after 5 years battling, we had 5 minutes of hope which was very quickly dashed. That’s why I wrote the document below – to help anyone else in the same boat and to stop similar disappointment.

Times have moved on a lot since then and where as a victim of financial crime used to struggle to expose what was happening, nowadays some of the big banks expose their crimes for us! Everyday the papers have a new banking scandal in them and the regulators, the Government and the public are all aware that some banks have a serious propensity to dishonesty.

Fortunately this blatant misbehaviour has meant bank culture has had to start changing (a tiny bit) and, better still, we have some new players in the market place like Metro Bank who are gaining popularity exactly because they don’t have a business model which sets out to mistreat its customers or SMEs.

All the same, many of us still have serious and unresolved issues with our banks and everyday I hear about more cases where people are really struggling to keep going or, in some cases, keep their sanity in the face of very unethical behaviour by banks. So I hope these pointers which are entirely my own thoughts after living through 7 years of outrageous treatment from HBOS and Lloyds Banking Group, will help anyone newly acquainted with bad banking practice!

  1. What you’re up against – the 3 D’s.

    Many bank’s rely on a policy of 3 D’s – deny, delay, dilute. When you first realise you’re up against multi billion pound corporation who is going to; deny everything you say; take months to reply to you; delay any resolution for years and; dilute your case by muddying the waters with legal technicalities, you will, quite naturally, feel despondent and impotent. That is the first hurdle to get over. Be aware this is what they are likely to do. Expect it. The quicker you do, the quicker you can get on with challenging their tactics.

  2. Do your research.

    Make sure you have your facts 100% right – not only about your case but also that you know exactly what you can really expect from your bank and what their obligations really are, as opposed to what you think you can expect. For example, a banks’ primary duty is to its shareholders and not to its customers. Also, however boring it is, read and reread every document you have from the bank. Then cross reference it with their code of conduct, the BBA code of conduct and the FSA Principles. Most of the codes are voluntary (FSMA rules are not) but even so, it helps to document in writing to the senior people at the bank exactly how many of the voluntary codes their bank has broken. It sounds complicated – it’s not that bad. And if you’re in it for the long haul, things like the FSA principles and FSMA 2000 will become regular reading to you. Although having said that, almost every example of malpractice can be shot down with Principle 1 of the FSA Principles: “A Firm must conduct its business with integrity.”

  3. Make a complaint in writing to the banks internal complaints department.

    Very often a waste of time and you will almost certainly get a negative reply but, if you don’t go through this process, everyone, including the regulators will have an excuse not to look at your complaint until you have.

  1. Write politely but firmly to senior executives of the bank, the CEO and the Chairman.

    If you are sending your correspondence electronically, always ask for a read receipt and if you’re sending by post, ask for an acknowledgement of receipt as well as a rely. You might also consider sending correspondence by registered post. The fact you can confirm they definitely received your correspondence can be very helpful later as they cannot deny someone knows what the content was. Also, make the point in your letter or e-mail, over and above the fact you would like the Board or the executives to deal with your complaint, you are writing because you want to be sure your complaint or allegation is on the record at the most senior level of the bank. Finally, be sure to keep any reply in a secure place – there is little as helpful as the banks own words over a period of time. Even if most replies you get say they have already dealt with your complaint and “we do not intend to correspond further” that can still be helpful. I have a pile of such replies – which all look rather silly and lacking in integrity (FSA Principle 1) now 10 people are being prosecuted with criminal charges in the HBOS Reading case.

  2. What to expect or not expect from the regulators. FSA (FCA) and FOS

    In the case of an individual complaint, the FSA (now FCA) http://www.fca.org.uk/ will almost certainly send a reply telling you they do not deal with individual cases. Nevertheless, send a very detailed explanation of your complaint to the FCA – as it may end up as a systemic issue which they later have to deal with. When sending your complaint to the FOS http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ , be aware they are limited as to the compensation they can award (£150k) even if they do find for you. So an SME for example, which may have lost considerably more, cannot get a resolution through the FOS. All the same, it’s another box ticking exercise and I would advise you to tick them both.

  1. Document everything.

    Very important. Take notes on every conversation you have with people in the bank, the regulators, your MP and, if applicable, the police. If you have conversations with people who are giving you information or evidence relating to your case, send them your notes of the conversation and ask them to verify that you have your facts correct. Keep all your notes and correspondence safe and in order – you may need to refer to them years later and it’s not helpful to find you’ve destroyed or lost potentially critical evidence. This has been one of our best tools. People contradict themselves all the time and very often they completely forget they’ve said black is white and say it’s pink. We know what people said about HBOS Reading back in 2007/2008 because we wrote it down. Many of them don’t remember.

  1. If your complaint involves fraud or the possibility of criminal actions, try to identify other potential victims.

    Get in contact with them and pool your information. Then give your collective information to your MPs, the regulators, the police and authorities like the Treasury Select Committee. If you try and give your information individually, most of the authorities will tell you they cannot look at individual cases. It’s much harder for them to ignore you when you have evidence of many similar fact cases.

  1. Collect evidence and case law that will help you.

    If you do identify similar cases (even if they are not directly related to your case) collect case evidence and case law because, should you have to resort to the civil courts, which is a dangerous route, the bank will rely heavily on case law that’s beneficial to them and legal technicalities that may confuse you and manipulate the court. You may not be a lawyer (although you can still research case law yourself in Bailii http://www.bailii.org/) but if you can collect evidence from other victims of similar cases, it can help your case. And even if some judges (and certainly the banks barristers) will refuse to consider it on the grounds it is irrelevant to your case, it will still go on the record and in the transcript. So it’s worth saying out loud e.g “I have here 10 examples of similar practice from this bank supplied by other victims.” Almost certainly not court protocol but then neither is it court protocol to deliberately mislead a judge – and I have seen HBOS legal teams do this repeatedly.

  2. If you get to the stage where your MP is involved, copy him or her in on all your letters to the bank and the replies you get.

    Some MPs are real champions of the underdog but unfortunately, not all of them are happy to get involved with financial disputes against big banks. But if you are suffering from a genuine injustice, your MP has a duty to assist you http://www.ukpolitical.info/YouandyourMP.htm . So don’t ever let them make you feel you are a nuisance. And if they do, I suggest you copy every letter to and from your MP to third parties like the regulators or, if you feel you are being particularly badly treated, to the Prime Minister.

  1. Use the many tools available on the internet to collect additional evidence

    You can get details of companies and directorships on Companies House http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo which can be very helpful but it does cost £1.00 per document and, in the case of a very big fraud, you may end up needing hundreds of documents you simply can’t afford. There are other sites that can give you the same equally valuable information, especially with regard to directorships, which, while they charge an annual fee, can work out cheaper. The best one we found back in 2011/12 was Creditsafe http://www2.creditsafeuk.com/ . But now you can get most of the information you need free from Dellam http://www.dellam.com/cgi-bin/main.pl or better still Duedil https://www.duedil.com/ You will still have to pay for company accounts etc but you will be able to see directorships, shareholders and debentures. If you’re prepared to put in the time going through the information on (e.g) Duedil, the paper trail you uncover can help show you the bigger picture.

  1. If you believe and have proof someone in the bank has committed an illegal act, report it immediately to your local police or to the fraud squad.

    In many cases the police will tell you your complaint or your allegations are a civil matter – we were told that in the HBOS Reading case where the Cambridge police would not investigate our allegations simply because the bank told them there was nothing to investigate. Stand your ground. Don’t take no for an answer. Write to the police giving a clear statement of the crime you believe has been committed and listing the evidence you have to support it. Copy your letter to your MP and the FSA. Ask for a crime number and remind the police they have sworn an oath to “… prevent all offences against people and property” http://srchtag.com/ex/vfc2nonclymg2yi.html .

  1. Dig in and adapt your living standards to suit your circumstances until you reach a resolution.

    It could take years to finally get a resolution or compensation from a bank and many banks believe their policy of ‘delay, deny, dilute’ will cause many complaints or allegations to simply disappear – which they do. People get old, get ill, cannot bear the stress, simply give up or in some cases they die. It’s an effective and immoral way for banks to minimise the cases against them. If you want to win, you need to have the right mind set and you must learn to live without things you are used to having and also learn to appreciate some things you have taken for granted. Make the most of every positive in your life however tiny. It’s the small positives which can keep you going in times of immense stress and even a bank can’t take them from you.

  1. Try and keep on top of everyday bills that could potentially cause you massive problems.

    If you find yourself running out of money because of what your bank has done (common problem) you still have to stay on top of daily issues or you will end up being the one in Court! One such example is Council tax. Make sure your local council know about your reduced circumstances and that they reduce your council tax accordingly. If you don’t, you could find bailiffs on your doorstep. Where you know you will have problems paying your creditors, try to keep them informed about what is happening. People can be amazingly accommodating, considerate and supportive, if they know you are suffering real injustice. Similarly, they can be very aggressive if they don’t know what you are going through and feel you are merely trying to take advantage of them.

    In the really unfortunate event your debts escalate to the point of bailiffs attending your property (which is so offensive to when you have to struggle so hard to get authorities to take action against financial crime) it’s really important you know your rights because some bailiffs will unfortunately misrepresent them to gain access to your home: http://www.advicenow.org.uk/advicenow-guides/consumer-and-money-problems/dealing-with-bailiffs/if-bailiffs-knock-on-your-door-html,620,FP.html Worse still, if for any reason (including the consequences of bank malpractice) your lender or land lord threatens to evict you, you must also know your rights. http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/eviction

  1. Contact your local press and give them the details of your case but be wary of approaching the national press unless you can forge a positive relationship with the journalists.

    Try and get your local press to cover your story. Give them regular updates and include issues of human interest especially if, as in our case, your situation with the bank results in eviction hearings or Court proceedings. But be very wary of approaching the national press.Good investigative journalists are few and far between whereas advertising budgets supported by banks and corporate bodies are ever more desirable to an industry that is plagued by modern technology which increasingly reduces its budgets. We know to our cost that some journalists who have had chapter and verse on the HBOS Reading story have gone on to write stories that were completely incorrect as to fact and have gone out of their way to make the victims look like the fraudsters.Having said that, we have also been lucky enough to come across some exceptional journalists who have been enormously supportive and fortunately, I would say now, in 2015 we are getting to the stage where more journalists are aware you are likely to be telling the truth about bank malpractice. All the same, when considering the main stream press, its a good idea to check out who is on the Board (past and present directors or non executive directors) of newspapers.

  1. Set up a blog site and put the details of your case and your allegations on it.

    Invite people with similar situations to get in contact with you. Be very careful however, not to publish your allegations or to defame people unless you are 101% sure you are right. While you cannot be accused of defamatory behaviour if what you publish is based on irrefutable proof, banks and individuals in banks or financial institutions, may well have legal teams capable of highlighting even the most minor flaw in your argument  that is capable of challenge. So be very careful what you write. Down the road, the bank or its lawyers could take your words and make them your worst enemy.

  2. Use social media to your advantage.

    One thing banks (or even Governments) didn’t factor in after the credit crunch was the phenomenal rise of social media. Use it to your maximum advantage. Get google alerts for the bank you’re complaining about; tweet the articles; look at the people who re-tweet you or who tweet on similar subjects. Add them to your followers on twitter or Facebook. Share information with them. Social media is maybe the most useful tools you have so make the most of it.

  1. Be very tolerant of your family or people who are living in stressful circumstances because of the situation the bank has put you in.

    If ever there is a time you will need your family, it’s when you are fighting a major battle with a bank or corporation with no morals and deep pockets. Even family turmoil is to their advantage as it will stop you focusing on the real battle and cause you immense distress. It’s easy to play the blame game and for families to be at each others throats when every thing goes wrong and you are all stressed. Don’t give banks that pleasure. Close ranks – stick together and think of your family as your army and your support. Sadly, if your battle goes on for years, you may find you lose a few friends along the way because people will get sick of hearing you repeatedly talking about your case. Also, you may no longer be able to afford to do the things you used to do with your friends (restaurants, holidays etc) so you may just drift apart. Even more reason to be very tolerant of your family. They can’t walk away and they are probably living through the nightmare with you.

  2. Don’t be arrogant – leave that to your opponents.

    Anger, outrage or encouragement and support from friends or family can sometimes make you feel you can publicise every tiny breakthrough as a major victory. Don’t go there. You won’t feel so arrogant when two years down the road you’re still struggling and the bank executives are still coining in the millions. It’s tough I know, but leave the arrogance to your opponents. If possible, encourage them to be arrogant in writing or better still to tell blatant lies in writing. Keep your powder dry and your day will come. Also, regardless of how angry you are, try to be dignified and professional in your dealings with the bank (even when they’re not). Banks love it when people come across as highly emotional and slightly erratic. We know of several very good cases where victims have been their own worst enemies and especially in court rooms where judges have little tolerance for unprofessional or aggressive behaviour. It gives credence to the idea you may be unreliable.

  1. Be wary of false promises or men baring gifts.

    Don’t think, because the bank, or the bank’s lawyers, or a regulator or anyone else gives the impression they are suddenly sympathetic to your cause, that you can afford to drop your guard. Nothing is over until it’s over but banks will try to placate you, albeit temporarily, if they have other pressing situations going on which you could, if you were aware of them, make worse. They tend to blow hot and cold according to their own situations but at the end of the day, the protection of their brand and the protection of those people highest up in the chain, is their primary interest. Contrary to what their code of conduct says, some banks are not at all interested in their clients – unless those clients either owe them billions of pounds or can implicate their senior executives in shady dealings.

  2. Be very wary of taking the legal route.

    One thing banks definitely have in their favour is their ability to pay vast sums of (shareholders) money for good legal brains. You, on the other hand, because of your circumstances and unless you go into battle as a multi millionaire (in which instance a bank would almost certainly give you more millions rather than challenge your allegations against them), will possibly be a litigant in person. So going to court against a bank is like being thrown into the lion’s den. Even if you can find a law firm to represent you on a CFA basis (conditional fee agreement) you will always play second fiddle to their paying clients and you really really need to be very careful when choosing your lawyers. Yes, there are good ones out there – but legal firms are not charitable organisations. If you run out of money, many of them run out of advice or sympathy simply because they are also businesses and need to pay their staff. Your catastrophe is yours, not theirs. So don’t expect morality to come into it because in most cases – it’s just business.

    Equally worrying is the new game on the block whereby third party funders will take your case forward because they can see you have a valid case which might bring about lucrative results – but buyer beware, by the time you have paid your legal fees and your third party funders, you could find yourself in a Jaundyce and Jaundyce situation – you fight for years and get nothing. This is why banks love the playing field of the court room. Even without the disturbing proposition that justice is very often in need of Spec Savers these days and some Judges seem ill advised if not illogical, banks know that the Court room is, in general, their play ground not yours – unless it is a criminal trial, But even then you must be wary.

    Having said that, we have won most of our 22 eviction hearings as litigants in person and in some of them we were up against the Vice Chairman of a huge London law firm as well as the banks barristers. So it can be done and we still have our home but we did have the advantage of bundles of evidence we had collected about events originating at HBOS Reading. Not many judges wanted to evict us until that was resolved – although one did.

  1. If you feel yourself becoming seriously depressed, get treatment.

    Remember that depression is a common complaint for whistle blowers or anyone taking on a bank or corporate. This is a subject I’ve heard discussed at length by well known whistle blowers and victims of Corporate fraud and I know many people who have suffered terribly from depression. There is no stigma to falling into depression when a bank has ruined your life – it’s actually very normal. So if you feel yourself going down that route, get help asap (and while we still have the NHS) http://www.depressionuk.org/national_links.shtml and, if you do have treatment, make sure the bank, your MP, your local council, your creditors and any regulators you are writing to, are aware of that treatment and why you are having it.

  1. Don’t give yourself time scales.

    The fact you have conclusive evidence of negligence, misrepresentation of even fraud, means surprisingly little to some banks. Whatever happens to you will not, sadly, stop the senior exec’s, getting their mega pay and bonuses. Therefore, they have no interest or concept of what you are going through but they do know, the longer you go though it, the more likely it is you will give up. However confident you are, never tell yourself this will be over in 3 months, 6 months, a year. We did and here we are 7 years later still going through it. Just keep going. If you are in the right and if you are resilient, then one day it will be over but only when you have worn the bank down as much as they’ve worn you down – or, if you’re really lucky, the authorities will make the bank resolve matters. That can take a while and you will only disappoint yourself and your family if you try to predict that time scale.

  2. Remind yourself on a daily basis that, whatever the bank says, you can win if you don’t give up.

    Most banks don’t have moral stamina, they just have money and lawyers and they change their lawyers as often as you change your socks. They also change their management, their policies and even their CEO’s on a regular basis. Sooner or later and if you are persistent, you may even come across a CEO who has heard of damage management. You never know and neither do I but it could happen and we live in hope?

  3. Weigh up your options.

    Really taking on a bank can take years out of your life which I know to my cost. Even if you win in the end and get some or all of the compensation you want, no one can give you those years back. In the case of Paul and I, we had no choice. The bank destroyed our business and, when we exposed the corruption behind this, they also tried to take our home. We had no option but to keep fighting. Neither would we give in to supposed resolutions that were, in effect, no more than bank housekeeping and of no advantage to us or any other victim of HBOS Reading. So we have kept fighting. That was our decision and one that we and our family have paid heavily for but which we wouldn’t change. We have been defrauded – we are in the right and we will never give up until we have won; or reached a consensual agreement; or, in the event that never happens, have fully exposed every detail of HBOS Reading that we have uncovered. That’s our choice but, for anyone starting out on such a battle, I would say, if you can, mediate, mediate, mediate. You may not get everything you want but never, ever feel guilty for compromising and for not taking our path if there’s a path that gives you and your family a resolution you can live with. You’ve only got the one life and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to spend years fighting mega wealthy and corrupt organisations.

  4. But if you are determined to win the fight be aware you really are involved in a David v Goliath battle and Goliath is a huge, mean and unprincipled giant!

    So on your darkest days, just remember, “the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.” Tell yourself that over and over everyday and you will win.

If these pointer help even one person, then it has been worth publishing them. I really hope they do!

©Nikki Turner 2015

Bad Saturday – Twenty people with teacups can’t stop the flames of the next credit crunch.

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Not a good start to a Saturday. First the post arrived and it was one letter with a barely legible hand written envelope to Mr P Turner – well done to our postman for deciphering the address. All the same we could see immediately who it came from because of the Royal Courts of Justice stamp on it. We were surprised because we don’t have a pending case in the Courts. What we do have is an indefinitely stayed case regarding our never ending eviction hearings. It’s stayed pending the outcome of the HBOS Reading trials which were due to start in January 2015, were moved to September 2015 and, a couple of weeks ago, were moved again to 2016.

For those reading this who don’t know anything about Paul and I, we have spent years investigating and exposing a major bank scandal. It took us from mid 2007 to September 2009 to get the regulator involved and then another year to get the police involved even although we reported it in December 2007. For our troubles, HBOS and then Lloyds Banking Group tried to evict us 20 times and on their last attempt a Circuit Judge allowed it and refused us permission to appeal. So our last hearing was the second of 2 in the High Court where we were asking for and then granted permission to appeal. That was in August 2010. However, by this time the police were involved and the first arrests in the case were in September 2010. So in December 2010 the Bank asked us to agree to an indefinite suspension of any eviction hearing on the grounds both we and they were witnesses in criminal proceedings – it wouldn’t do for witnesses to be fighting each other. That’s where we are – on hold until the criminal trials are over and God only knows when that will happen – although thinking about it, God probably doesn’t know either.

Anyway, the letter, or rather the form from the Courts this morning, informed us that our case is now closed and we have 14 days to retrieve our paper work or it will be destroyed.

This could mean one of two things: First, a clerk in the court, tasked with filing, has seen the date on our case and assumed it must be over, or sorted, or in any event not going ahead because it’s dated 2010. I might make that assumption myself in the same way I would have assumed the HBOS Reading trials would have been over 4+ years after people were arrested. And if this is the case, which I hope it is, we simply have to inform the Court our case is not over and is still active.

The second and darker scenario is that this is some form of legal trickery by the Bank to get the case out of the High Court and maybe back to a friendly Circuit Judge. I can’t see why the Bank would do this or how it would be advantageous to them when they could simply carry on waiting for the criminal case to start which could be never? But, while I repeatedly say (these days and as a founder of SME Alliance) that I firmly believe there are good banks and good bankers, sadly I don’t include Lloyds Banking Group or team Horta-Osorio in that bracket. And I am always waiting for their next malicious move.

You don’t hear much about HBOS these days although there was a small flurry of news when it was reported the FCA review into HBOS (like the HBOS Reading trials) has been delayed yet again – until after the election. Well there’s a surprise. But I don’t think this is because anyone in Government or in the FCA/PRA has forgotten about HBOS – we are constantly reminding them it remains unresolved. I think it’s still a priority – or at least burying what happened at HBOS is still a priority.

Which leads me on to the second disturbing thing about this Saturday morning. Included in our e-mails this morning were a couple from our friends at WBUK (whistle blowers) who wanted to share a video on Youtube. The video is of ‘The Spaniard’ interviewing a former employee of the FSA/FCA turned whistle blower. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5c1FmVL8M

The whistle blower, who almost certainly isn’t called ‘Joanne’, says she worked in the financial sector for 15, 16 years and her last job was to help the FCA write mortgage policy so a financial crisis couldn’t happen again (so she was looking at what happened with sub prime) – I have no reason to doubt what she’s saying. She also says or confirms what a lot of us have felt for a very long time – the regulator is paid for and controlled by the banks.

This is not a revelation and I do remember a senior enforcement officer of the FSA telling Paul and I the FSA BoS Censure Report of March 2012 could have been published two years before it was but for Lloyds stopping it – which was a clear case of the tail wagging the dog.

Ridiculously maybe, even people like me who have battled long and hard with the FSA for 7+ years, still hope there is an element of good intention in the Regulator’s office and that ultimately, it will do what it says on the tin – i.e. regulate, control and, where necessary penalise the banks and bankers to stop them doing more damage to the economy and to society as a whole.

Some would say that is a very naïve view and one I have no excuse for holding but actually, it is essential we hold on to this hope because the alternative is too dark to consider. Which is why I found ‘Joanne’s’ words so depressing this morning. I am a member of WBUK and I know there is no glory to blowing the whistle. Whether you blow the whistle on the MoD, NHS or the financial sector, all you will get for your efforts is aggravation, alienation and sadly, in many cases, persecution leading to serious depression. So I think Joanne would have thought long and hard before she did this interview.

It’s quite hard to hear what she’s saying because it was a telephone interview so I’ve transcribed a couple of extracts:

“….it was all about making sure you work with the banks to protect the banks, not to protect the people. It’s definitely not independent – everything had to go back through the banks, even the wall to wall control by banks – it was absolutely astonishing. I was amazed at the amount of politics that was there and the fact that everything had to be referred back to – did it reflect well on the Government, did it reflect well on the banks – and that was the aim of everything.”

“…. and in my opinion there were rules already in place that could have been used to prosecute banks and could have been used to hold somebody to account for what happened in the massive mortgage mis-selling scandals. But they weren’t because nobody had the will to. Because that’s not what we were there to do – we were there to give the impression that’s what we were doing but you weren’t actually supposed to do it.”

I would have transcribed more but it’s too depressing – maybe I will tomorrow. In short, what Joanne is saying is, all the harsh words from politicians, from the Treasury, from the regulators about how bad our banks are and what is being done to reform them, are no more than lip service put regularly in the public arena to deceive us. In reality the banks have been and are still holding all the cards and pulling all the strings. When you go to the regulator with a serious complaint, you are really sharing information with the banks and they will decide how it is dealt with. If Joanne is right in her allegations then Paul and I have furnished the Bank with 35,000 pieces of evidence about HBOS Reading. Not very clever of us.

Back to this morning’s post and Mr HO. I have no faith or trust that the HBOS Reading trials will ever go ahead – I hope I’m wrong but considering Joanne’s words, it seems unlikely the establishment would allow such a controversial story to come out. Similarly the FCA report into HBOS. If regulation is all about protecting banks and not the people, HBOS is a hot potato that at all costs must be mashed to a pulp and then smothered in a gluttonous gravy that makes it impossible to recognise let alone swallow.

While Ian Fraser’s brilliant book ‘Shredded’ (which I would advise everyone to read) exposed the horrendous goings on at RBS, there has been no major criminal case involving RBS bankers which would put Ian’s research in the spotlight and directly in full view of the Court of Public Opinion. Not so HBOS – we’re waiting for a major criminal trial to proceed and a major FCA review to be published. Additionally, there is at least one book taking a very candid look at HBOS waiting to come out and that is over and above the fact no one can doubt, after his years of blogging and articles, Ian Fraser is a font of knowledge about HBOS as well as RBS. Of course all concerned will abide by the rules of sub judice until the criminal trials are over but none of this will fit the criteria of “ did it reflect well on the Government, did it reflect well on the banks” Clearly not. So will the authorities ever allow HBOS to be fully exposed? Probably not.

And if that is the case, the only other place where much of the truth about the staggering misconduct in HBOS would come out, is in a High Court case when and if the Bank decide to re open our eviction hearings – although actually the stayed appeal is our case and we could also reopen it. Our defence in the eviction hearing is entirely based on what happened at HBOS Reading and the conduct of the management of HBOS and Lloyds after Reading was exposed.

So maybe the logic of the Bank and its high powered lawyers is to get our case out of the High Court where it could be as damaging as the criminal trials themselves? Or maybe our post this morning really was a case of a clerk having a tidy up? Who knows? Either way, Paul and I have learned a lot over the last 8 years and we will not be ignoring the Court letter.

I really, really hope that one day soon, someone, somewhere in authority, will decide enough is enough and bring about even a minor change of policy that starts reflecting the interests of the Country and its people over the interests of the Banks. I don’t think that someone will be David Cameron or George Osborne or Ed Miliband. All of this “first and foremost protect the banks” policy, started under New Labour and has progressed under the Conservatives. Sure, there are some really good cross party MPs or even Conservative or Labour MPs – but one swallow doesn’t make a summer and even a really good MP – my friend Clive May’s MP, David Hanson, is a very good example as is Brian Little’s MP, Jim Shannon – can’t change policy on his own.

Maybe Mark Carney who has said “no one is above the law”is the man for the job? And someone told me a while back that John Griffith-Jones is actually one of the good guys and I should talk to him – I would certainly like to and I would like to ask him for his comments on what Joanne has said. I would be so happy to see concrete evidence that actually the FCA considers “consumer protection” and “the reduction of financial crime” of equal importance to “market confidence.” But Joanne’s words make that hard to believe. Especially her comment when she was asked – if Wembley Stadium going up in flames equalled the credit crunch, how many fire engines would she say the FSA used to put the fire out? Her answer was:

…….“there was probably a line of twenty people with teacups.”

That is very scary and we should all be aware the only outcome of this situation continuing is the next fire won’t be contained to a stadium.

Many thanks to both the Spaniard at White Rabbit Education and ‘Joanne’, for bringing this insight (or is it incite?) to our attention.