The Power of the Banks

[The Frozen One]

I ran across this article on RT about a guy who beat the banks at their own game. He received a unsolicited credit card offer and sent it back with a few modifications to the small print. The banks went for it and in the long and short of it tried to sue the guy once they realized they were duped. He won a settlement for $700,000.

For further details, this is the source:
http://rt.com/business/man-outsmarts-banks-wins-court-221/

Now this guy is in fear of his life supposedly. He plans on leaving Russia after a few threats were sent his way.

Source:
http://rt.com/business/tinkoff-bank-agarkov-credit-299/

It is interesting that this guy managed to pull this off in the first place. Now the people who run this bank are at least embarrassed or very upset. Considering how banks take advantage of people with rather high interest rates on their credit cards while offering absurdly low interest rates on their savings accounts, I think this is simply Karma (so to speak). However, due their influence in politics because of contributions and lobbying they have a lot of sway, at least here i the US. Do you believe that banks have too much power? If so, what do you think could realistically be done to change that? If not, why?

 

[Lallapalalable]

First off, I love that guy. To be blunt in my opinion, fuck banks. For a number of reasons, but the worst being how they can just take your money, be it overcharging for services the customers never agreed to or knew existed or just making up fees. And even on the rare occasion that anyone even speaks up about it, nothing is done to stop them from doing it, and as evidenced in the above

I would love to do this, but only if I got to a point in my life that I really have nothing to lose, because I imagine they would win in any sort of court and I would end up paying for it. I would really have to consult a shady lawyer before doing anything, just to know that everything I'm planning to do won't actually be a crime on my part, because I don't live in Russia.

 

[The Frozen One]

I too see where there are problems with how the banks can take advantage of the common citizen. To add fuel to the fire, here's another article about a woman whose house was emptied because the her house was listed as being due to be evicted.

http://money.msn.com/now/post--ohio-bank-repossesses-womans-home-by-mistake

The problem is that she had never missed a payment and nor was she even close to being late on a payment either. When she asked to be compensated for all of her belongings that were discarded, the bank basically said, we're not paying you full value for this. Odds are that she would get more if this went to court. The fact that banks can be so brazen after such a clear error on their part only demonstrates how much power they have. I am wondering if it is too late to correct this and if it isn't, then by what means could it be corrected?