I believe that the Reclaim Fund idea was a brain fart of Gordon Brown’s. The idea is to effectively seize dormant funds lying in unused accounts and take them for ‘good causes.’ It’s not their money, but they take it anyway.
Yesterday I received a letter addressed to the late Mrs L relating to just such an account. I’d forgotten this. When we were just starting out we opened accounts with the Bristol and West building society. As it turned out we never really used these accounts and they lay dormant ever since. From time to time, I thought we ought to close them and put the money elsewhere, but other things got in the way. There’s not much in there. Maybe a hundred quid or so.
Now the Reclaim Fund has its greedy eyes on it, so time to act. As she is dead, the usual means of getting the money back doesn’t apply as they want proof of ID. I have a death certificate, so a trip to the branch of the new asset holder will have to be the best option. The original passbooks, if they are still around were issued by a different – now defunct – financial organisation. As it is, I do have letters relating to the transfer to the current organisation with account information, so I’m hoping that will do.
For those who may be thinking that as it’s a relatively small sum that has been sitting there for decades doing nothing, so I won’t miss it, so why not let Reclaim Fund have it, are missing the point. It isn’t their money and they have no rights to it, hence I will make damned sure they don’t get their hands on it. A hundred quid or a few pence, makes no difference. There is a principle at stake here. As far as good causes are concerned, I eschew this as much as I do the nudges on those payment processors that want to take 20p for charity when paying for fuel. No. Fuck off. I’ll decide what good causes I want to give money to, not you. You don’t nudge me and you don’t take my money just because I’m not using it at the moment.
Was the letter specifically to give advanced notice of the intended theft? I’m asking because we have one or two dormant accounts with the odd hundred quid in here and there. If there is no warning then we will obviously need to take action, either by closing the accounts or moving money in or out of them periodically so that they are not defined as dormant. I would suggest that banks should be taking action to prevent these thefts, otherwise they are being negligent.
I think you might find it would be something like (paraphrasing)
“Account XYZ will be stolen for political reasons on 15th of december. If you are so nazi and Brexit knuckle dragging white supremacist as to want to deprive black lying murderers of their due reparations, contact – email/phone of shame – by said date)
Fucking Brown. Pension wrecking, goggle eyed, snot gobbling, cunt of all ages.
Excuse me, I have to shower now in liquid helium.
It’s an advance notice. Oddly, there are three accounts involved – one each and a joint one – but only one letter. There are forms to fill in (that simply don’t apply in this case due to Mrs L being deceased) and a deadline to stop the theft, so they aren’t making it easy. I have to actively step in and prevent it or they take it, whereupon getting it back becomes a whole lot harder.
The banks do what they’re told by the Government and have done for decades
Indeed and I treat them with the appropriate suspicion.
I’ve now followed the link and I have to say that I’m pretty appalled. I notice that the copy and paste facility is disabled so I actually took the time to transcribe this part.
“Our main scheme has now attracted [stolen] £1.6bn of dormant assets from banks and building societies since RFL was established in 2011. From this we have, to date, made a total of £892m available to good causes across the UK.”
My first thought is, where is the other £708m? I remember this being talked about when the idea first came up, I had no idea that it was actually happening. The website does have a list of participating banks and building societies so that you can close your accounts with them and let them know why.
Yes, I tried to copy and past relevant passages.
You can copy any text/lists you like from any of their pages by viewing the page source. Of course, this is selected from the context menu, and right-click is also disabled (they think they are clever). So to get the page source, do the following.
Select Page Info from the main menu and go to the Permissions tab
Scroll down and find the item “Override Keyboard Shortcuts”. Take off the checkmark and select “Block”. Close the Page Info dialogue.
Press CTRL+U to get the page source, scroll to the paragraph you want and copy in the usual way.
You can also use the Media tab of the Page Info dialogue to steal any non-downloadable video clips or pics on the site.
Thanks. I knew there was a workaround, but it’s been so long since I came across anyone being so anal, that I’d forgotten how to do it.
Yes. The missing 708 million quid being the ‘cost of collection’.
Incidentally, did the web site state which ‘good causes’? Has any of the money been given out, or has a lot siphoned off while still being ‘made available’?
Whatever, it’s still naked theft. If you or I did that we’d be learning why you don’t pick up the soap in the prison showers.
All those fat cat salaries don’t pay themselves, you know.
Allowing the Government to decide what is a ‘good’ cause is a recipe for disaster.
The Government has stolen far, far too much money from me, for fuck all in return, for me to give them a penny that they cannot legally extort out of me.
Wankers.
I agree with you, not a penny to those fuckers unnecessarily, not a fucking cent to any charity anymore either, including the fucking boat rescue twats.
I stopped giving to charities a long while ago. You may recall the Devil’s Kitchen and his fake charity site. Now defunct, but it woke me up to just how much these organisations steal from us in taxation. So, no, not one penny more.
I only give to local charities and charities in my wife’s home country.
National charities in this country are a joke. Spunking too much money up the wall on manager salaries etc.
Me too, Mark
For me it was the antics of that Camilla Batmangoolies, or whatever she was called, bunging a whole pile of teenagers the cash to go buy a handful of spliffs every week and calling it charity (whilst also seemingly paying private school fees and much more besides from charity funds).
Managed to take in Cameron – showing that he’s about as good a judge of character as Tony Blair.
There’s a principal at stake here . . .
I’ve had a similar letter from Tescos bank. Got two months to sort it.
“For those who may be thinking that as it’s a relatively small sum that has been sitting there for decades doing nothing, so I won’t miss it…”
I wasn’t thinking that. Anyone else?
I was covering all bases. I do get the occasional idiot drop in.
’point. It isn’t their money and they have no rights to it, hence I will make damned sure they don’t get their hands on it.’
The exact same way I feel about the NHS leeches eyeing up my mother’s estate should she go into care. I’ll quit my job and nurse her at home myself rather than let the bastards get their hands on it…
Slightly related: I’m about to have strong words with my energy supplier which is holding the £700 that my account is in credit. I want it in my bank account not theirs.
They would probably use the money to help those poor asylum seekers in Kent.