Desperate RBS lobbying for tougher repossession laws - The Slog

Taxpayer-owned bank in dire straits as Santander deal collapses; more customers reveal fraud evidence.

Bank contractor sources revealed over last weekend that Royal Bank of Scotland lobbyists are hammering hard on the Coalition’s door with a view to getting draconian repossession laws passed. With fraud suits and gagging orders flying in every direction, Stephen Hester uttered the euphemism of the year by telling the media that the failure of the Santander retail purchases deal to complete was ‘disappointing’. Yesterday, financial opinion leaders were aghast at the thought of RBS effectively having its systemic gangsterism legalised.
“If you won’t entertain debt forgiveness,” said the banking insider who contacted the Slog two days ago, “then managing bad debt is actually an expensive and time consuming activity.” Especially for the customer. The source continued:
“In essence, the objective is for banks to be able to seize assets and collateral much sooner and to a greater extent than they can at the moment. They also want the current bankruptcy laws reviewed, the view being ‘people mustn’t be allowed to escape their obligations’.
At the moment RBS are also looking at taking a much more aggressive approach with tens of thousands of people on relatively low amount debt repayment plans.”
The Slog has ample evidence of pressure-switching from interest-only to full repayment loans….as well as attempts to foreclose fraudulently. This is effectively asking customers oversold debt by bankers from 2003-08 if they wouldn’t mind screwing themselves so Freddie Goodwin’s megalomania can be amortised. Nice. My contact concluded:
“RBS along with a number of other banks is lobbying for a reform of debt laws and regulations in this country. Essentially they’ll put the squeeze on people deep in debt but just coping.”
If RBS staff are allowed to go any harder on such policies, they might just as well dress up in red and start using the rack. But 90% of the time, these drones are of course merely following the orders coming from those far above the train-timetables-and-tendering-for-gas-pellets process. And now that the Santander deal has collapsed,  things can only get worse – for everyone: for the Spanish bank was going to take on 316 RBS branches in the U.K.
The knackered toxically insolvent bailed-out bank (82% owned by us and aren’t we thrilled about that) was required by the European Commission in 2009 to sell the branches as a condition for receiving state aid. Santander has backed out after two years of haggling, and once again every taxpayer is entitled to ask why.
Whenever anyone from an Arab wealth fund to a sovereign State gets to see the RBS books, they tend to reverse in the opposite direction in sixth gear. The Slog has been using RBS Group insiders for eighteen months now as the source of allegations that the real toxicity of the Group is way, way beyond anything the public has been told. Further, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests simply bounce off Stephen ‘I’m above the Law’ Hester, as the bank has been cleverly structured to ensure that the vast majority of the bank’s jiggery-pokery lies beyond the definition ‘State’ or ‘State owned’.*
The bank said in a statement Friday that it would continue to work on fulfilling its obligations to the European Commission, and vowed that the decision would not impact on ‘service to customers’. So if you have an account with RBS, you should be very afraid of being serviced bigtime in future by the Rogered Bowel Syndrome.
All of which brings us back full circle to those 1600 customers currently in dispute with the Great Monetiser. So removing all names, pack drill and possibilities for injucting, here are some telling excerpts from just a few victims’ accounts of being at war with the RBS:
‘…..given the circumstances surrounding the closure of our Personal Bank Account, and your own close links with the Accused, we are legitimately concerned that you were personally involved in the orchestrated closure of this Account…an act which we believe also constitutes the Criminal Act of Conspiring to Pervert the Course of Justice. We will deal with the matter of NatWest’s / RBS’s overall liability for our massive losses (i.e. as result of our improper & fateful introduction to XXX XXXXX) under separate cover…’
‘Upon discussing the case with the Banking Ombudsman, who was horrified at RBS’s conduct, we were told that this conduct seriously breached the Banking Code…’
‘The Joint Personal Account was closed, without even informing us until the week after, on a Friday afternoon (on the 2nd October ’09), before a vital Monday legal deadline (on the 5th October ’09) in relation to our Proceedings at the Royal Courts of Justice…Proceedings in which we have been forced to act as Litigants in Person, and having to prepare for substantive High Court submissions [because] we were left without access to money….’
I would stress that, before reaching any conclusions about the above content, readers should remember that:
1. The above extracts could be a pack of lies; but
2. Some of the behaviour mentioned in there rings true….and sounds familiar.
*Those so keen on the Branson acquisition of NHS primary care services should note that the same thing applies there.

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If you had asked me two years ago whether ‘financial repression’ was a reality or a blogosphere-invented conspiracy theory, I would’ve said the latter. But surveying the pending Court cases relating to UK retail banking at the moment, there is a veritable Alpine mountain range of evidence to demonstrate that at least four banks are actively involved – with senior management approval – in fraudulent asset repossession and thinly disguised extortion.
It’s also clearly doing it with the full approval of HM Treasury.
This tells you all you need to know about how bad our fiscal and banking situation is here in Great Britain…and how amoral the politico-banking axis has become. It also explains why ‘glitz bricks’ prices are heading for the Moon, and gold is almost certainly having a brief rest before powering well beyond the magic $1800 an ounce.
Over the coming year, I will be holding the very minimum possible in cash. What you do is your affair. In the meantime, I would suggest that – without massive passive resistance to banks and tax inspectors, we’re all going to be fleeced yet again.

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