The talking bank

I worked once as a temp at a bank. It taught me that the bigger the debt you owed, the more ingratiating the letters you received from the bank. (‘Hope you’re enjoying your new yacht, and may we respectfully, but there’s no hurry old boy, draw your attention…’) Conversely, the smaller your debt the more vicious the correspondence.

‘Bank drove our son to suicide’. Yesterday’s headline reminded me of this. A 20 year-old computer student owing £1,200 was ‘pestered’ by the bank ‘for months’, as were his parents. ‘On the day he died, they even called and I told them exactly what had happened,’ said his father. The young man was not idle; he worked at McDonald’s in the evenings and studied in the day. His parents earned too much to qualify for financial support (she in a bank call centre and he as a prison officer) but not enough to help out their son.

When his student loan of £1,000 reached his account it was swallowed up by the overdraft. The bank then closed his overdraft. When, encouraged by his mother, he visited his local branch to try to resolve the problem, he met with a refusal. ‘They cannot do anything for me,’ he told his mother.

A statement from HSBSC offered its ‘sincere condolences.’

James Baldwin, American essayist and novelist, wrote: ‘Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.’ Don’t let it cost your life.