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It never makes sense to me why some banks seem like they’re begging their customers to run for the hills and find another place to handle their finances.

It seems pretty dumb, right?

Well, by the amount of stories we see from people who are unhappy with their banks, you’d think they all together to be difficult on purpose.

In today’s story, a person shared a story about how their dad maliciously complied and got even with a bank who jerked him around.

Let’s take a look!

Bank selectively enforces rules, loses business and money.

“This is my Dad’s story rather than mine, but I felt it might amuse some and is probably the only time in his nearly 70 years that he has done something like this.

In the 1970s with the UK suffering a recession and work hard to come by, my (then childless) Dad had an opportunity to move to Dubai to work. My Mum was able to go with him, they’d have accommodation provided, a good income (higher than the UK equivalent would have been) and were able to fly over and check everything out before committing.

Sounds like a deal!

All in all, a great opportunity.

They took the plunge, and decided as they had no accommodation costs in Dubai, they would keep paying the mortgage on their UK house so it would be available to them if/when they returned.

My parents had a UK current account with one bank (let’s call them Goodish), but their mortgage and savings account with a different bank (let’s call them Muppets).

Every month Dad’s salary was paid into his current account with Goodish and he’d then phone them to ask them to move money into his Savings account with Muppets (as this is the account his mortgage payment came from). He never had any problems.

This should’ve been a quick fix…

One day, Mum writes a cheque from the Goodish account, then later realizes the account will not have sufficient funds to cover it. “No problem” thought Dad, I’ll give Muppets a call and ask them to move some back out of the savings.

Unfortunately, Muppets didn’t want to transfer money out of their account, and so informed Dad that the only way he can remove money from that account is in branch, in person, using his “savings book”.

Now, Muppets didn’t have a Dubai branch in the 1970s, the only way he could comply would be to travel 3,500 miles home. Frustrated at their repeated refusal to help, Dad resolves the immediate cheque issue another way, and looks at when he’ll next be in the UK.

Fast forward a couple of months and Dad is back in the UK. Armed with his little “savings book”, he strolls into his local branch of Muppets and asks for confirmation of his savings balance, and mortgage balance.

Yes!

He then hands over the mandatory savings book and requests to withdraw the full savings account balance in cash. Dad then pays off the outstanding mortgage in full, and asks for an envelope for the excess.

Dad then closes the savings account, walks to Goodish, and deposits the remaining savings.

They really messed up on this one!

Bank manager tried to stop this happening, but once Dad pointed out that he technically isn’t able to transfer money INTO his savings account without using the savings book, he’d have no way to pay the mortgage, the mortgage itself had no restriction on early repayment, and thus he could do what he liked with his own money.”

Let’s see what readers had to say about this.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another Reddit user weighed in.

This individual spoke up.

Another reader weighed in.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a manager who wonders why productivity dropped after he banned overtime with no exceptions.

And this individual shared their thoughts.

This was impressive!

You don’t hear too many stories about a regular person outsmarting a bank, but this guy did it.

Bravo!

The folks at this bank messed around…and they found out!