Sale of Lloyds branches to Co-op

[Losos]

Whoever thought about this should be strung up.

Roger here is the true story of this fiasco.

Back in October 2008 when it looked like finacial disaster was about to make the government look like idiots and many banks ('tho probably NOT Lloyds) were in real trouble Brown and Darling held a cocktail party at No.10 and the chairman of Lloyds (A long time Labour supporter) was there and Brown & Darling got him in a corner and said "Look we are going to have to bail out RBS we want you to do a normal 'take over' of HBOS and we will waive any competition rules to enable the take over. So the chairman went back to his CEO and told him to do it and to rush it through, the CEO did this without checking what HBOS was worth (The reality is it was worth NOTHING)

The end result was that Lloyds paid what subsequently turned out to be far too high a price (1 penny a share would have been generous :!: ) but at least they had a lot more branches which they could use to increase their customer base.

Then came the double whammy, first it didn't matter that the UK government had waived any monopoly rules, the European court ruled that the take over WAS unfair and ordered Lloyds to dispose of about 600 branches, and of course gutless Brown & Darling didn't stand up to them and just accepted what the European competition authority had said. Then of course Lloyds had to have a bail out because like I said above HBOS was worth nothing, in fact it was worth less than nothing and Lloyds ended up owning a bankrupt bank and having to accept a bail out from the government.

So if you want to know who is responsible, it is:-
a) Gordon Brown & Alister Darling for forcing Lloyds to take over these branches when they didn't want or need to.
b) The chairman & CEO of Lloyds for doing what the stupid Prime Minister told them to do
c) The UK Monopolies Commission for not standing up to Brussels
d) The European Monopoly authorities for ordering Lloyds to dispose of 600 branches to meet their rules

HBOS had cooked the books for many years, they had handed out money like it grew on trees, personally I would have liked to see HBOS go bust, I would have liked to see all those people who took out stupid 125% mortgages to loose all their homes, and all the HBOS credit card customers who had huge debts far beyond what they could ever pay off should have had their credit cards stopped.

 

[Losos]

The government is basically doing a lot of people a favour.

But it's nothing to do with the government, it's the European Monopolies authorities that are forcing Lloyds to dispose of these branches which they aquired when Brown waived the UK Monopoly Commission rules and allowed lloyds to take over HBOS. I am still gobsmacked that Lloyds management could have actually believed Brown & Darling when they said that they would waive any monopoly rules, didn't they know that the Europeans would not take lightly to this forced merger of Lloyds & HBOS :?:

 

[whiskywill]

If for some reason you really really must stay with Lloyds then just go to your next nearest branch and move your account there. You can do it without closing and opening a new account.

Apparently not. Part of the deal in selling to the Co-op is that existing accounts in those branches to be sold are included in the sale. You can only transfer by closing the account and opening a new one in another branch....according to an "expert" on the radio last week.

 

[tomatwark]

It is correct that your account will moved to the Co-op.

This is already happening with customers who bank with RBS branches which are being bought by Santander, those poor sods are being transferred for a bank with bad history to another which is from a country which is totally up the creek.

I bank with RBS with my business and at the moment have a choice of RBS, Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB or Barclays, as I need to able to pay cheques in non of which I would use from choice.

I think all of the above are as bad as each other, I will be waiting out side the door on the day when the Lloyds TSB branch in Kelso becomes a Co-op branch.

Tom

 

[RogerS]

Jeez..why the f**k do I bother?

I try and raise awareness and all I get is a load of grief. The best response is at the end of Elapid's reply, namely 'transfer branches' which makes a lot of sense.

So...if by posting this thread I have at least alerted some people that this is about to happen so that they can plan for it then all to the good.

As for the rest of you naysayers .....********

.....my hero...


Thanks for the heads up Roger, this has given me the advance warning to decide who I want strung up. What a dogs dinner this has turned out to be.

Yes, I always try to help out those who are more intellectually challenged and so it warms my heart to hear when I have succeeded.

 

[SBJ]

Yes, I always try to help out those who are more intellectually challenged and so it warms my heart to hear when I have succeeded.

You must get a great deal of satisfaction when you actually find one. Keep up the good work.

 

[RogerS]

Yes, I always try to help out those who are more intellectually challenged and so it warms my heart to hear when I have succeeded.

You must get a great deal of satisfaction when you actually find one. Keep up the good work.

Yes, when I realised how little it took to help you, it made me feel warm all over.

 

[Noel]

Complaints received.
Locked due to personal insults and inability to conduct an adult discussion by a particular individual:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffr9ucZJ4Fw