We are all familiar with that sense of disbelief, when we hear or read about a confidence trick so transparently obvious, as to how the perpetrator(s) ever believed they would get away with it.

Most of us have nourished the untameable greed of the British Financial Services Sector since our first ever pay-packet, yet increasingly, our contributions are not enough. Their latest scam, gathering momentum on a daily basis, will ensure that gullibility, stupidity and a failure in simple arithmetic will feature permanently in our DNA.

Taking Halifax Card Services as our example - pre-tax 2006 profit £5.54 Billions - they offer their credit card customers, balance transfers at 0% p.a. Details of this "special offer" are available elsewhere on this website, but for now, please accept that I believe it is MISLEADING, DISHONEST, DECEITFUL plus a deliberate betrayal of customer loyalty!

I complained to the Halifax and its regulators all within a few days, knowing from experience, that each and every one would treat me like an idiot.As the replies began to roll-in, they mirrored one another in two distinct ways:
After thanking me for bringing the matter to their attention, they promised a fuller response in four weeks, or "someone from the idiot deflection department would write in greater detail....", but when their correspondences arrived, not a single one said, or even attempted to show me that I was WRONG!!

I’m sure that no-one needs reminding that the job of a regulator is the protection of consumers by ensuring that firms, companies, organisations etc adhere strictly to prescribed rules. Our senses inform us that our guardians are, at best, flaccid, merely sitting on their hands and looking the other way. At worst, regulation defiantly brandishes apathy towards a kaleidoscope of injustice.

My insistence that a "Balance Transfer Fee" is daylight robbery has yet to be tested before a District Judge. When (not if) that day comes, my evidence will rely simply on the English Dictionary, Trading Standards own website and factual logic.

Those of you who have already see my large black estate car in the area must be wondering.... how can someone display the following banner outside the local branch?? :

HALIFAX (card services) 0% OFFER IS A 100% LIE!

And not get sued for libel??