Usual Suspect,

If you feel the advertising is misleading you can take a director to the Consumer Affairs Tribunal for adjudication. Even if you loose you will have ruined at least haf of their day. Cost is nominal.

If you win and establish a judgement debt, garnishee Australian bank's international currency [Vostro Account] with Bank of England, London. Apart from embarrassment, there will be a debit with no correstonding credit. A reconciler's nightmare for this style of account.

Relatedly, purchase a foreign currency for nominal amount say $2 and tear it up. It will never be reconciled, as these drafts unlike Oz Bills of Exchange never go stale. It will remain there for decades.

Of course I would never reccommend it and in fact I discouage it: But one peaved Bank customer put a dead fish into a safe-custody box!

O.

Gidday Oliver,

I doubt the advertising had anything less than the fullest and most detailed disclosure to comply with the law aka win them with a headline and bury it in the disclosure. As has been quoted elsewhere "A reliance on disclosure as a primary consumer policy tool has failed..." And the mechanisims for enforcement are even worse....

As for the dead fish, whilst I could never condone it, what a refreshing idea.

I like some of the the more creative solutions like the dead fish,but that only affects the workers who have no say in policy decisions.

In the near future due the the present financial crisis,we could see bank mergers worth $65 billion.This will serverly limit competition,and we could see a Coles/West Farmers market,whereby the big boys elect an unofficial price or interest rate which they will not go under.It is unofficial price fixing which is almost impossible for bodies like the ACCC to prove.

We have reached a point in this country where the wealth is far from being distributed evenly,and increasing taxation on the dwindling middle class,will not address it.

Greeting mortgageinsider and Arjay,

Arjay, I agree that one should do everything that is goung to be hardful or sickening to the innocent staff. I really would not do the fish: Just sharing: It did happen.

I don't know the situation now but the Banks did collude at at the level below GM about interest rates but the system work that the lead Bank [Westpac, now NAB?] set the rates and the others would the following week. It takes a few days to clear things with legal, sign of the advertising, place notifications in the staff circulars and build the intrest table that is read by the Bank's computer programme. While I would recommmend rate some models were first produced by the National Manager, Retail Lending, I reccommended the changes, the Chief Manager of the Commercial Bank parsed these for implecations on the Corporates [usuall change one rate feel a part of things ;-). The GM approved. So the authority process is model, analyze, recommended (me, funding side), support and approve. It was above board.

Disclosure that is an interesting when computer systems change sometimes mistakes are found that require reporting to the RBA for exanple FID abd BAD. Remember these? The Board reduce the amount calculated by the investigation acturial and report a reduced/lower figure to relevant. The authority believing the Bank had been upfront and honest about voluneering the information guaranteed say the RBA auditors wouldn't question their ethic. I reproted this twice to a police hotline and was ignored.

The TPA [ACCC] is very powerful, especially Section 52, which deals with goods being "fit for purpose" in "trade and commerce". Say if a Bank didn't close your credit card account after three requests and you have records of the same, I suspect it would be a breach.

More mortagages later. But I don't feign knowledge I don't have, as it was a long time ago and the other side of the Bank's balance sheet.

Best regards.

After a re-read:

"In the near future due the the present financial crisis,we could see bank mergers worth $65 billion."

And centralisation of the control of trillions dollars in superfunds and deposits. The capitalisation is just the tip of the iceberg.

In 1993 or 1993 the shareholders voted no confidence in the Westpac board saying it was they and not the ececutive management that results in four (really was six) billion dollars in bad debts. Westpac had a common direct and voted the proxy of the insurance, nominee and unit trust it holds. Actually, I feel there should some form regulation here.

Chers,

O.

Go for the credit unions. In SA, Wespac is poised to gobble up a few more banks, including Bank SA, which has already been gobbled up by St. George. Now it's St. George's turn.