CAG toolbar - very disappointing

[johnnymitch]

BF , I didn't realise this thread existed until today ........ and as I'm on ths site more or less daily .... maybe you should have advertised it more ...... or am I just going doo lally ? lol! ( answers to BF on a postcard with a tenner attached ! )

[tifo]

How about those who GIVE advice rather than receiving it TIFO ? If they were forced to donate (although I have donated in the past anyway) the advice would dry up I'm thinking .....

 

I don't see how that is relevant, it is the people RECEIVING the advice that may benefit from it. The person giving it is doing so FOR FREE in that sense.

 

If EVERYONE was forced to pay a small fee upon registration (e.g. £5) then that is fair to everyone as they can then benefit from RECEIVING and GIVING advice. It would also be fair for the people who lurk and get advice but never post. And it would make 'ogres' pay as well!

 

Bottom line: if the site is useful to you then you should donate. Nothing can come for free forever.

[tifo]

Though not a tactic I would use, I've seen other sites go 'offline' for a few days at a time and cite "we need donations to keep going". Those that need to use the site will then realise how useful it is and how important it is to donate to keep it going.

[tifo]

Then there can be a 'banner' at the top of the pages which shows target donations required and amounts reached in that month. An easy to use scale and one used by many sites which rely on donations.

[bustthematrix]

Or just go through the membership rolls, anyone who has never donated should be invited to do so.

 

I personally can't see why every member can't give 50p or £1 per year. That would more than cover CAGs budget and allow for special projects and further much needed research and consultation to be periodically undertaken.

 

I think anyone currently using CAG or having benefited from it in the past would find it hard to not afford 50p to £1 per year.

 

@250k+ members this would be £125k to £250k raised!!!

[Fred Bassett]

I would be very happy to pay a small monthly fee. I did actually write to the Mods at one point to set up a monthly standing order to the site - I was actually advised not to do this, but to wait instead until I'd reclaimed some bank charges and make a donation from that. In my case, that's not really relevant.

 

Anyway, if somebody would care to give me the relevant bank details I will happily set up a monthly standing order for, say, £5 per month. If only 10% of the registered members did the same there wouldn't be a problem. Also, I am in the middle of legal proceedings with Egg at the moment. If I win that one, I will make a larger donation.

 

Regards to all.

 

Fred

[Boss39]

I just donate a small contribution and will do again

 

Hope that well - I would rather make a donation to you than paying MBNA

[Fred Bassett]

Come on then Site Team - give us the details so that we can set up standing orders.

[disgruntledofcornwall]

Would it be an idea to turn the organisation into a charity? I know a specialist in charity accounts.

 

For -

 

A little more trust that money donated and raised will be spent on the aims of CAG, I should add I have no qualms here but it does give some confidence to others.

 

Ability to claim tax relief on donations at 20% giving an immediate boost to the existing finances.

 

Ability to apply for funding usiing funding specialists. The chap I know also does this. There are a lot of EU social fund programs to support education relating to poverty.

 

There is money around to set up social enterprise companies at the moment. A lot of it. It won't be here for long though as the government seem to want to ditch involvement with EU social funds etc even though it is our tax money coming back to us. Logic escapes me on that, but the money is there.

 

To maximise the potential for grants, this should ideally be set up in a Tier One area like Cornwall.

 

If set up as a limited company, this gives some distance from liability, though the trustees can be held responsible for debt, though insurance is available for this and should be offered to trustees to indemmify them.

 

(Edited to add - this would protect individuals from massive costs should we go all the way and loose).

 

The fact the banks would be in effect acting against a charity for the poorest and those in financial distress through the greed of their directors would make the publicity more unfavourable for a bank. Don't forget that there are new corporate responsibility laws that come into effect soon hopefully. See here for more details on this.

 

Against

 

Costs in running a charity are not small, there are audited accounts to consider, (again, the chap I know is qualified to do this).

 

Solicitors needed to draw up your constitution. This can be expensive.

 

I think there would need to be at least 2 full time members to run such an enterprise. I don't think realistically you could rely on unpaid workers as you would be in serious difficulties should they leave the organisation in the lurch.

 

My partner and I have a good knowledge of promotion through media and social media for which we would be prepared to donate some time.

 

Is there a facebook page for CAG? I would be willing to maintain one.

 

Is there a Twitter feed? Again, I can do this.

 

Press releases? I don't have time for these but someone could.

 

A media area on the site? I mean a proper area with all the links to articles published in the media by CAG? Journalists like to bash banks so an easy to use resource of cases like the A&L human rights EU case would be great.

 

None of this is meant to be a critisism, much may have already been considered and rejected for good reasons I am not aware of. One thing is sure. Without a properly resourced fighting group, we will never see our money and the banks will continue to bully the poor and vunerable. The government does not care. The British are too apathetic to bother. An financial education charity is both needed and would, I feel, gain popular support off the back of the fat banker debates raging in all the bars in the UK every night.

Edited August 20, 2010 by disgruntledofcornwall

[bustthematrix]

Turning it onto a Charity means it'll come under the regulation of the Charity Comission. Despite all the 'pros' you've highlighted above, this could become an issue further down the road if matters that are considered 'anti-government' start to be raised.

[disgruntledofcornwall]

Well most of the large organisations directly challenge government on core policies without any issues, Trident, nuclear power, mental health, anti terror laws, freedom of speech so I don't think this is really an issue.

 

As we all know, the government were complicit with the OFT failure, they guided the OFT to take the course of action which could only lead to the loss of the case. I imagine the (alleged and hypothetical) conversation went something like

 

Banks: Remember all that money you lent us? Would you like to see it again...?

 

Government: Yes, it was hundreds of billions of pounds. The country is bankrupt.

 

Banks: Well you won't unless you drop the charges case.

 

Goverment: Oh bug*er.

 

There is no point in trying to change policy at this stage. Or ever.

 

The fact is that the banks are probably acting unlawfully in the current legal framework. They know it and we all strongly suspect it. There is no need for new laws. The CCA should be enforced on banks for OD's, the UTCCR needs to be enforced. The issue we all face is actually getting enough money to take them to court in the first place and having a sustained barrage of high profile cases so they cave.

 

Then we need also to press more cases where the banks jump out of fast track to the ECHR and get binding judgements under article 6 as Govern have attempted, (in progress).

 

I know a fair amount about how the Charity Commision works and generally they are only concerned with bent directors stealing money from the charity and there appear to be hundreds of them. They are quite busy there.There are costs associated with the audits required but I know someone willing to do that at much reduced rates.

 

I can't personally see that there are any problems with challenging the status quo on financial matters, certainly no where near as contentious as anti terror laws and the RIP bills challenged by human rights charities. I think if we win the cases, the law will be clarified and there will be no need to do any sort of government lobbying. Just my 2p.

[RoadToRecovery]

Guys, just tried a few times to donate and getting a fatal failure message.

 

re: toolbar, how difficult is it to produce a version for each browser?

 

I use safari but will revert back to ie for the time being and install the toolbar.

[maroondevo52]

Hi, RoadToRecovery.

 

I'll flag this up for Webmaster.

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

[sisternumber1]

I tried to donate via paypal, got a message from PayPal telling me that my bank will not allow donations to this site! Can the banks really tell me to whom I may or may not make a payment? Very worrying if that is so. Have donated in the past and not had any problems.

[maroondevo52]

Hi, sisternumber1.

 

I will bring this to the attention of Admin.

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

[sisternumber1]

Thanks - its very worrying as I never have any problem making payments or donations to other causes

 

 

Hi, sisternumber1.

 

I will bring this to the attention of Admin.

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

[sisternumber1]

I tried again and although I got a flag telling me that my bank wouldnt allow it - I continued and as far as I can see its gone through - at least I have a receipt to say it has.

[fighting for victory]

Sorry, but this is going to sound negative, negative negative.

 

I wish we could send out lots of emails but we don't have the money.

 

To send a bulk email to our entire userbase would probably cost £3000 or more.

 

 

Not sure why it would cost money to send out an email? I used to work for a large PC manufacturer and did the selections to send out the newsletter to about 100,000 customers at a time via a program called Mail King, and it didn't cost a penny ... Was planning to donate once I have over £1,000 worth of charges back that the bank has taken from me over the last 5 years, but the whole process seems so complex that I'm not sure if I'll ever manage to figure it out (e.g. how to calculate the compound interest, which seems to make far more sense than just the standard 8%). I've downloaded the toolbar though if that helps, will have to see how I get on with it.

[johnnymitch]

Good point fighting for victory ....... and welcome to the forum

 

Doesn't CAG send out an e-mail to everyone who has accessed a thread , to let them know there is another post on it ? I know I get notice every time a thread I have subscribed to has more posts on it ..........

 

Surely those don't cost money or it would be unprofitable to do this ??

[johnnymitch]

Just as an afterthought FFV, would these links on Compound Interest be any good to you .............

 

 

 

England - Simple - Excel

England - Simple - Works

England - Simple - OpenOffice

 

England - Advanced - Excel

England - Advanced - Works

 

Or – for the brave – Interest on Interest ...... by bankfodder

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/201984-why-let-your-bank.html

 

Explanation of Advanced spreadsheet calculations(courtesy of pete castlebest )

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/180009-about-sar-hsbc.html#post1996894

[fighting for victory]

Just as an afterthought FFV, would these links on Compound Interest be any good to you .............

 

 

 

England - Simple - Excel

England - Simple - Works

England - Simple - OpenOffice

 

England - Advanced - Excel

England - Advanced - Works

 

Or – for the brave – Interest on Interest ...... by bankfodder

 

(Can't post links)

 

Explanation of Advanced spreadsheet calculations(courtesy of pete castlebest )

 

(Can't post links)

 

Thanks, I came across the first link yesterday and downloaded the spreadsheets, but I get errors in some of the fields with formulae in them, so maybe it's an Excel/OpenOffice incompatibility (I use the latter). I think though that I've now figured out myself how to calculate the CI - sometimes I just lack faith in myself and tend to panic, until I realise that things aren't that difficult as I initially think ...

 

Not going off-topic anymore though, but will be starting my own thread instead.

 

With regards to the CAG toolbar I've got to say though that the only functions that seem to be working are 'Links' (and not all of them - some of them are dead links) and the two 'Web Search' buttons / drop down (which both direct me to Google, which is exactly the same as my start page button already does anyway). My password that I enter under 'Options' gets replaced each time with a much longer one (so 'New messages' presumably doesn't work without being logged in correctly) and the 'Thread' and 'News' drop down menus as well as the long one without a description don't do anything either.

 

Am I the only one experiencing those problems? Cheers.