Who is thinking of making money from you?
I find it disturbing that I not only have to be alert about salesmen/women trying to sell me stuff, I also have to worry about my bank as well.
I got a letter from my bank the other day, it read sometime like this….
Welcome to Private Banking…. As a desirable customer, you would enjoy the following services…a personal banker, discounts to hotels, restaurants, insurance and so on. It then went on to say that for this service a charge of £12 a month would be required.
Now here is the fascinating bit. I had not asked to join this “private banking service” and I sure was not going to make use of the phantom benefits listed in the sales letter.
Why is it that people are only concerned about you when you have a healthy bank balance? You would think your bank’s job was to help store, protect and grow your money. Wrong! There job am afraid is to make money from you, to suck you dry and make you indebted to them forever. They give you an umbrella when it is sunny but take it back when it starts raining.
I remember going to see my bank account manager about 6 years ago, to ask for a property loan. As you might guess, they asked me to take a walk. The irritating thing was I wasn’t asking for a lot and a proven property investor was going to mentor me, so the risk was low. May be I would be sitting a pretty property portfolio now.
Anyway, that is all in the past now, back to this sale letter from my bank. I wonder how many of you ever analyse your bank statement for “private” or “preferred” services that mean nothing to you but are costing you money every month.
As we draw nearer to the end of the year and the start of a new year, may I propose you are alert as to the services sold to you by your bank. Something as simple as a diary from the bank can have cost implications you are now aware off. I should know it happened to me.
If you did not know, now you do…there are many people interested in your money, and some of these people are those you least expect.
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