This is the first article of several planned to expose bank practices, quoting from the words of authors/sources in the financial milieu. After you read the poinient words and examples all factual, we hope you will decide to entrust your next mortgage to an independent professional mortgage broker that looks out for your best interests, always.

According to Charles A Bell, author and founder of MoneySmart©,  the banks pay minimal taxes despite astronomical profits in the billions of dollars each and every quarter of every year.  How can that be? He asserts that “bank competition is virtually non-existent”, and that they make most of their profits through “outright deception, withholding information and even planned intimidation”.  

Big, bold statements for sure but hear this. Bell says that some of the tactics that are ‘systematically’ used are: 

1. Making you wait at least 15 minutes or more to see a loans officer.

2. Designing forms so long and difficult (impossible) to read, if not impossible to understand.

3. Securing more collateral than necessary as security for a loan.  

4. Misleading advertising – refraining from full, accurate disclosure and stating half-truths.

5. Automatically adding credit life and disability insurance to a loan without asking you, and telling you that it is optional, or worse, telling you that you must take it.

Nasty stuff isn’t it? And we haven’t even got to the subject of mortgages yet. Next week we will go into how the banks ‘Hold’ your deposit cheques unnecessarily for days on end, for their profit, and why you should NEVER allow your bank to pay your real estate taxes through your mortgage payment.