I Fought The Lloyds Bank Charges

Money makes the world go round or so they say. But here in the UK the banks and their bankers aren't having the greatest time at the moment. With the British government loaning approximately £900 per citizen to the Northern Rock building society there has never been a better time to try to reclaim some of those illegal bank charges back from your bank.

Until recently the British banks have been hiding behind the notion of 'free' banking. Us Brits don't have to pay for our current accounts...or do we? Enter Martin Lewis, The Money Savings Expert. He pointed out that when we open our bank accounts we are entering into a legally binding contract. So far so good. If we miss a payment or exceed our overdraft, we are charged an excessive penalty fee. 'Wait' said Lewis.

Consumer law states that any charges credit card providers levy on their customers must be proportional to the actual costs they incur. And the simple question is, ‘does it really cost £35 to send an automated letter when someone’s gone 1p over their limit?’

They’re not supposed to fine you; yet over the years that’s exactly what they’ve done whenever people have missed credit card repayment dates or bust through their credit limit. And it’s for this reason that you should be able to get back the last six years’ worth of cash.

Well this campaign has been gaining ground over the years with a lot of successful reclaims against the banks. Now somebody called Oystar has gone and re-written the Sonny Curtis classic 'I fought the law' into 'I fought the Lloyds Bank Charges'. While this isn't destined to make it into your all-time greatest songs playlist, it is still a moderately good attempt at a protest song.

Apologies to the vast majority of W♥M fans who aren't British.

EDIT by Christopher: MoneySavingExpert.com rocks!!! They just saved me like £80 on a new internet provider, and I don't have to wait ten hours for a single track to upload to WHM anymore :o) Martin's cool aswell.

 November 25, 2007 13:28   Ryan my♥posts Moneysavingexpert.com

Kev Oystar wrote: Nov 25, 2007 1:13 PM

Hello
Thanks for putting up a blog and video of our song. We sold over 5000 copies of the single in our first 12 hours after the MoneySavingExpert.com press release so we're really excited about the track's prospects in entering the charts in a high position (top ten at least!) and raising awareness of the campaign against unfair bank charges in the UK and the wider international community. I would certainly agree with Christopher's comment that Martin Lewis has been inspirational with his coordination of the national campaign. We met him when the video was being shot and he's a lovely bloke to cap it all!

Thanks once again for all your support.

Kev Oystar (the horse in the video!)