Please excuse the rant, but I have just come off the telephone from HSBC and I am sooo angry! I just wanted opinions really. We have had two mortgages with HSBC for over 15 years - We have always paid the full amount on the 24th - or next working day, of each month on both mortgages, as this is the date I get paid. However, about this time last year, my husband was made redundant, and we fell into arrears, almost to the point of losing our house -we had not one ounce of assistance from HSBC, apart from being constantly hounded, even though we were making token payments of £100pm (on 24th) on both mortgages. Luckily, just in time my husband got a job (May, this year) and we paid the arrears on 25th May, we were then told we had to make our monthly payment also on 1st June. We made the payments plus £50 extra off each account and have continued to do so on 25th of both June and July. Great you may think, we are paying excess on our mortgages each month and also paying a week early on each account! It would seem not! We continue to get letters each month telling us we are falling behind with our payments - because - we are paying too early and it is coming off the balance - and showing as arrears! Payment due £XXX.XX on 29th July (Sunday) - Payment made, plus £50 on 26th July (Thursday). Arrears letter sent 31st July, arrears letter sent 3 August - plus numerous phone calls - within ONE day of an apparent missed payment!!! I have been spoken to like a child on both of my hour long querys on the telephone, and basically told, if I continue to pay early, I will continue to get arrears letters! (This was after we had spent half an hour discussing the wrong account, on one call!) As I am paid on 24th of each month I asked for my payment date to be brought forward - but they can only push it back which will incur 20.00 extra in daily interest. I feel this is ridiculous! Either I pay my morgage at the correct, exact, amount, on the correct, exact day or I am harrassed - either that or put more money into HSBC's grubby little pocket - which I will not do! It feels that we are being penalised for working hard, to try to ensure that we dont end up in the same situation in the future, and am now in a different catagory having had recent arrears - despite 15 years of paying regularly! Even after all they have done, the banks really do have us over a barrell and I just wondered if you had heard of such rigidity before, and, if so, what your take on the situation is? I am so frustrated and upset and I dont know where else to turn. I have had another letter today requesting full balance payment. Even when in credit, still I cannot get HSBC off my back!

I dont think he lied, I know he did - or at best let me assume something with his clever use of words. But how do I prove it. I came off benefits last year and am happy about that (of course) but this has brought its own problems I am trying desperately to pay my own way, I don't smoke, don't drink, have 3 stepkids I provide for. here is my problem. We fell into arrears and had a court bailiff come to the door. I let him in (probably the wrong thing to do I know) and I agreed to try my best and pay £120 off per month. This was in december 2011 I paid december and january, but missed feb and march, paid £240 in April. I have now also received a summons for THIS YEARS council tax. This is where I think he lied to me When he asked me how much I could afford to pay off, I started at £80 per month, he said that would not even cover the council tax that starts again in April and I would have to pay much more. I went up to £120 and he has (cleverly) eluded to the £120 I am paying was also paying my ongoing council tax (£80 to the Council tax and the other £40 to my arrears) - he hasn't actually said that, but he definately didn't correct me when I made that assumption. I rang the council today about the summons and said I have an arrangement in place already as I am paying the "bailiff" they said this is WRONG. the bailiff is chasing the OLD debt, and the summons is for THIS YEARS council tax, and because I haven't paid anything its going to court. Does that make sense? It is two separate debts. To be honest, I am struggling to pay £120 per month, let alone TWO LOTS of it as the Council have said that they would NOT accept more than £132 to clear this years debt. Any advice would be greatly welcome because as it stands at the minute I feel my only option is to give up work and sign back on and get the whole bloody lot paid again for me !!!! The other thing that is really annoying me is that in April I paid £240 - actually only £30 came off my Council Tax bill, the other £210 went in charges - £140 for him posting a bloody letter through the door and £70 in court fees for THIS YEARS BILL

Hi Guys, I hope you can help me. I have several issues that i want to raise regarding think banking and gregory pennington and hope that someone can help. Firstly i took out a DMP with Gregory Pennington nearly 3 years ago. i provided my income / outgoings and explained that i was struggling to live and pay rent due to my high levels of debt. I looked over everything and even though i knew there would be a fee attached, decided it was worth the money as long as my debts got cleared....this is where things started to go horribly wrong! Firstly i was informed by Gregory Pennington that i would 'NEED' to set up a bank account with Think Banking. Since i was paying large overdraft fees each month the £12.50 monthly admin fee seemed a drop in the ocean in comparison, and so i agreed. I realise now that there is no need for me to ever 'pay' for a bank account and i feel like i was forced into taking this account and want to know if i can do anything about it in the same way people claim for mis sold PPI? These two companies claim to be seperate and yet with the mounting issues i am having with both of them they seem to be almost intertwined and i wanted to know if you had any further information about them? Also when i signed up for this account think proudly announce that they are part of the RBS group. I have found out today following the massive RBS banking issue on moneysavingexpert that this company is not part of RBS at all and merly uses there banking system and i am wondering if this is then fraud? I have several complaints that i wish to lay out to you but if i can start here any advice would / info would be greatly appreciated as looking over these forums you guys seem to have quite a bit of experience of dealing with people tied in with these con artists

Hi all, If I can't sleep I think about the Universe and how vast it is. For example, the Voyager 1 space probe (launched in 1977) is now over 11 billion miles from Earth, but hasn't left our Solar System yet! The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across. A light year is the distance light travels in one year, at 186,000 miles a second. Keep thinking about numbers like that, and your mind will be completely boggled. It puts me to sleep when that happens, so may work for you too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q45DiRwldM8&feature=youtube_gdata_player