[warning: long post]

It’s not anything new to rant about banks.  Money is a touchy subject for most people, and an emotional one at that.  Banks are notoriously unsympathetic when it comes to helping you sort out your personal problems with money; in some ways it’s understandable, I mean it’s just figures to them after all.  I’m sure they hear all sorts of sob stories and people wanting to get away with not paying or just running from their obligations.

I had to type a series of interviews yesterday that were about people defaulting on their mortgages.  It came as something of a shock to realise that this was all still quite raw and painful for me - our home was repossessed around 15 years ago in the middle of my dad’s business going belly up, and my parents’ divorce and it was just a nasty, nasty time. We were exposed to the most unpleasant aspects of the finance world, namely collection agents and sheriffs and cold, aggressive people who didn’t care that you had nothing to do with the debt, they were just doing their job and coming to destroy your life.

So fast forward to the present day.  I have a personal loan with my bank (let’s leave aside the foolishness of getting into this debt and just go with it for the moment).  I had no trouble making my monthly repayments, until recently when work slowed down, the cash flow wasn’t, er, flowing, and it all went a bit pear-shaped.  Most banks now have some sort of assistance program, where you can ring them, explain the situation and they will try to give you some other options to help you sort out your repayments without incurring huge problems.  I wanted to be responsible, accept that I had made unwise decisions, and tell the bank I was prepared to make my repayments, I just needed to rearrange the times and amounts so that it didn’t become burdensome.

The woman wasn’t exactly warm, but she listened to me lay out the situation and suggested that we set up a payment agreement.  Instead of the large monthly payment, I would pay a smaller amount each week, manually, from my bank account.  The large repayments, which were previously direct debited from my account, would not come out so long as I was making this weekly repayment.  Which was manageable and fair and I was happy with that.  “You may get letters or phone calls from the bank if your account goes into arrears, but just ignore them and tell them that you have a payment agreement set up, so it’s covered.  It won’t be a problem.” I wondered why they couldn’t just make a note on my file saying it was all sorted, but no, that’s not how it worked.  Okay.  Fine.

So I dutifully set up my payments, happy that I had been responsible in facing the problem, sorted it out and left it at that.

This week I got a letter, a quite aggressive one, telling me that my account was in arrears.  Although the woman had told me to ignore the letter, I thought I’d better double check.  So I rang the bank, confirmed that I had a payment agreement in place that they knew about, no extra money would come out of my account, and it was all fine.  I filed the letter and thought no more of it.

Until I checked my bank balance and noticed it was at zero.  Crap.  Some money had been taken out for the loan.  That’s odd...For some reason I just ignored it.  It was only about $15 so I just thought perhaps it was some sort of adjustment amount.  Or something.  But then this morning when I checked, after transferring a few hundred dollars into my account to pay for a work expense my account was at zero again.  ARG!  This was more than an adjusment.

So I rang the bank’s personal loan section.  I was calm and I explained the situation and that the money shouldn’t have come out because I had this payment agreement set up.  “Hmm. Let me have a look, I’ll just put you on hold.” Jaunty music.  “Hmm. That probably shouldn’t have happened, should it?  I’ll just see if we can get that money reversed back into your account.” Phew.  Thanks.  More jaunty music.  “I’ll just have to put you through to lending, as we aren’t able to do that here.  Okay?  Thanks.”

I’m transferred to a man with a strong accent of indeterminate origin, who makes me explain it again, umms and ahhs, then says “Okay we can transfer this amount back.” (about a third of what they took out)

“But that’s not the full amount.”

“No, well we will keep the amount for this week’s payment.”

“So I won’t have to make the payment on Saturday?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.  So I’ll transfer that now.  But you won’t get it until tomorrow.”

Well I wasn’t that happy about it because I still needed the full amount of money for that work expense, but whatever.  Sure.  Do it.  So will the bank stop taking money out of my account then?

“Oh, no, since your loan is in arrears, that money will continue to come out.”

“Um...but why?  I have this payment arrangement organised.  If they keep taking out money every time I put money in there, how am I supposed to pay other bills or...buy food?”

“Don’t you have another bank account?”

“No!”

“Oh I can’t do anything about it from here.  You will have to call the lending services to delink your bank account, otherwise it will automatically keep direct debiting.  Here is their number.”

I hung up, burst into tears, rang mum and ranted for a while.  She told me not to let it get to me, that although it sucked (she didn’t use that word) it was just insignificant in the big scheme of things.  She said “when you ring them back, just remember, you are a child of the King.” I had a shower, listened to some uplifting music, prayed, remembered I was a child of the King, and rang lending services.  While I waited to be transferred to an operator, a bubbly voiced recording trilled that the bank had won some great award and “one of our award-winning consultants will be with you shortly!”

One of the award-winning consultants eventually answered the phone.  I calmly explained my situation.

“It’s a personal loan.  I can’t do anything about that.  Your account has to be linked.”

“But I’m making manual payments!”

“I can’t do anything about it.”

“But what am I supposed to do?  When I made this payment agreement, they assured me that this wouldn’t happen.”

“Customer assist you spoke to?”

“Yes.”

“One moment.” Even jauntier music than before.  “I’ll put you through to them.  I can’t do anything about it here, but they probably can.”

I was transferred to a cheerful sounding chap.  I explained it to him in very brief terms because I was sick of talking about it.  “So you just want to delink your account and you’re making manual payments?”

“Yes.”

“Oh okay.” Type type type.  “That’s done for you.”

“Really?  So no more direct debits will come out?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow - thanks!”

“That’s okay.  Goodbye.”

Nobody can do anything.  It’s all somebody else’s problem.  When the bank assures you of something, it is in no way an assurance.  I really should have just listened to my instincts and kept the money under my mattress.

I had written “You are a child of the King” on my whiteboard so I could stare at it in case I started to get upset again.  But as I reflected on it, I realised the truth of what being a child of the King means. He provides. He cares about me and my petty struggles.  He is bigger than any bank or any debt - in fact, he’s cancelled the massive debt I owe to him.  I didn’t need to ring 64 million people to sort it out, all I had to do was accept that Jesus had cancelled it for me.  And I can fully trust when he says it’s done that it is done (tetelestai!!!!).  What an amazing God!