The UK banks have customers in line for billions as banks lose an unfair charge case. Billions of pounds of overdraft fees could be forced to be returned by the UK banks, a high court judge said the fees could be challenged by the Office of Fair Trading. It was agreed by Mr. Justice Andrew Smith and the OFT that charges were covered under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation 1999. This allows for further hearing in the court to decide which kind of charges are unfair, and if so, what a fair charge should be. If the charges end up being found unfair at later hearings, the current account providers involved in the case - Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS, Abbey, Clydesdale and Nationwide building have a possibility of being forced to reduce fees and repay those they have over charged over the past six years.
This story contains prominence and timeliness, because this is an escalating issue, for over 5 years banks in the UK have been scheming members of the banks. This conflict will only increase in time as members slowly recognize the amount of money that is being dealt with. Lastly, this is a human interest story because it affects everybody who is customers to these banks, was customers, or those who were looking to be customers in the future. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/apr/24/bankcharges.banks)
My favorite story of the week was the teachers on strike in Liverpool, Birmingham, over 8,000 schools have been affected by the teacher’s decision to strike. This left 1 million children who were thought to be off to school sent home. This is an interesting story to me because, in my family teaching is a very popular profession and it is easy for me to understand where teachers are normally coming from. In this scenario I find it upsetting because of the amount of students that are being affected because of selfishness.
(http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2275750,00.html)
A Chinese cargo ship carrying 77 tons of weapons was sent to Zimbabwe yesterday to aid Mugabe’s regime.(The Guardian, 4/18/08, p. 1) Skin creams that turn back the clock may be a reality soon.(The Guardian, 4/23/08, p.8). Radical Muslim cleric, Abu Izzadeen, was sent to jail Friday for 4½ years for charges of inciting and funding terrorism. (The Guardian, 4/19/08, p. 4) McDonald’s claims designer uniforms give the fast food chain more up market image (The Guardian, 4/23/08, p.5)
