Halk, some good points.
I worked for a bank for a while and the treatment of it's mortgage customers in particular, in any amount of arrears was frankly awful to say the least. It was so bad I just couldn't do what I was asked to do anymore and left.
However, I have to disagree to an extent on consequences people stopping paying. Banks very often make life merry hell for people who find themselves in difficulty.
You say the laws are too soft on this. However, going the other way, the regulators are also far too soft on banks who nearly always ignore the banking code when it comes to dealing with people who are in difficulty and trying to restructure payments. CAB is absolutely inundated to crippling point with just such cases. They step in, say exactly the same things as the people trying to sort it in the first place and the banks back down so often because they know it was reasonable in the first place. Often in the interim they have made extensive profits.
I have first hand experience of the above, as well as a bank colluding with solicitors to withhold paperwork from County Court so they could sneak through a property charging order on a small personal loan through the backdoor. They failed, because it was the same one I worked for previously and knew their game. My only regret is due apparently to legal privellege, I can't prove who ordered it to be withheld and therefore can't send a complaint to the FSA or the Law Society.
I know charges subsidise accounts, but banks were making enormous profits when interest rates were far lower and at fixed per centages for all customers, with charges for unauthorised overdrafts or spending limit breaches etc about 25% of what they are now.
It is also well documented lately that risk based lending isn't working correctly because banks aren't allowing comparison sites to operate proper searches. This is artificially sustaining APR because it is scaring people out of shopping around. Banks aren't answering press questions on the subject so I'll draw my own conclusions.
