If Saeed were to keep up the pressure, I bet that the CEO of Barclays would find himself making another trip to Dubai.

All it takes in any large organisation is for just one staff member to be an anti-hunter and you've gpt trouble.......

I agree with you, but the problem is that unfortunately it can and does happen......

As you say, you can bet your life that the Barclays management are extremely shaken by the tough they might lose Saeed's accounts. - But then again, I can't help but feel they deserve to.

I'm actually astounded that Barclays are not being investigated for their Zimbabwe dealings. - Let's hope that Norman Lamb (MP) pursues the matter and forces an investigation into why they should be investing over UK£50M / US$100M a year into such a regime for no apparent benefit. - You can bet your life that they don't make anywhere near that amount back in additional profit from banking there. Therefore, it strikes me that there mighr possibly be a piece missing in the jigsaw.

The only way we as hunters can do anything about anti hunting practices such as are appaently beind adopted by Barclays is to take unified action by not doing business with them and by telling them why.......

I talked to my account executive, and told him their answer does not make me comfortable at all.

He has promised to look into this matter, and come back.

I will let you know what I get.

Thanks Saeed, you're a gentleman!

Hi Steve

Sent you an e-mail about me changing my banking institution from ABSA to something more palatable. I recieved a very concerned call from our private banker on Friday wanting to know why we are looking at changing our commercial, investment and private portfolio's away from them, hense I told him and sent him a link to the article you published. He is now dancing around like a cat on a tin roof saying something in the line of we cannot comment on the above allegations.... love making the banks dance...

Hi Buddy

I got your e-mail and replied immediatly - maybe it got lost in cyberspace? - Anyway, it thanked you for your support etc.

Also glad to hear they're getting upset about the situation - I bet they're not as upset as I was when they closed all my accounts at such short notice for no fair reason and cost me a bloody fortune in having to set up new accounts at such short notice!

Steve

Did get it thanks, they are dancing like drunkards. We hold a substantial account with them ranging from aircraft, property, credit cards, savings. I have also informed them that I have family in the free state that bank with them who are massive into the hunting industry and are looking at moving their accounts. Lets see them stress now.

Also a pointer to the other guys, Virgin Money owned by Richard Branson is also in close connection with Barclays and ABSA here in South Africa.

Great to hear they're suffering. The only way we can make them change their attitudes to hunters is to hit them where it hurts...... in their pockets.

Once they realise this particular special interest group of law abiding citizens can't be treated with disdain, we might see a change of attitude and policy.

Makes me wish I had a Barclays account just so I could close it.

Barclaycard USA is part of the same company if you have one of those.

If you wished, you could always make a point of instructing your bank to avoid any Barclays connection in any transfers you make etc.

As mentioned in a previous post, iShares, a common type of exchange traded fund (similar to a mutual fund)sold by many different stock brokers in the U.S. is a Barclay's product.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I talked to my account executive, and told him their answer does not make me comfortable at all.

He has promised to look into this matter, and come back.

I will let you know what I get.

Outstanding!

Perhaps you can cajole them into sharing this mysterious policy they refuse to release.

Steve, Good show, make them squirm. I just told my wife I would be closing out my personal barclay accounts. Not but a couple hundred thousand total so small potatoes in their world. I wont support someone who wont support me. I will also look at all my buisness and investment banks for ties as well. Maybe if enough of us do this they might take a hint. I will certainly steer my buisness elsewhere.
Saeed please keep up the pressure on these wankers.

Guys, keep up the pressure.
Cape Union Mart over here backed down very quickly when the word spread about their attitude to hunters and they suddenly had to field hundreds of emails, phone calls and irate customers.
Here is another example of pressure working on the other side of the pond;
USA : USA: Sportsmen Force Company to Cut Ties With Humane Society
on 2008/5/7 17:56:31 (65 reads)
Columbus, Ohio - Midwest Retail Giant Meijer, Inc. has ended its promotion with the nation’s largest anti-hunting organization.

The leadership at Meijer, a Michigan-based regional chain of retail superstores, has responded to the concerns of the sportsman community and ended its partnership with the anti-hunting group, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), in an online pet photo contest.

Meijer initially refused a U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) request to abandon the partnership, which according to information on the Meijer website, called for the company to donate $1 for each person that entered the contest, up to a maximum of $5,000, to the HSUS Foreclosure Pets Fund.
Click to learn more...

On Friday, April 25, the USSA sent out a call to action for sportsmen to voice their concerns over these donations to the biggest anti-hunting organization in the world. Sportsmen immediately took action, flooding the retailer with phone calls, faxes and emails.

Meijer has now eliminated the portion of the contest that included a donation to HSUS.

“Our program was an outgrowth of our history of supporting local humane societies. We were not aware of the concerns that exist among hunters about HSUS. As you know, we have strongly supported the hunting community over many decades,†said Meijer vice president of corporate communications and public affairs, Stacie Behler. “We have discontinued our donation program as a result of the feedback. No new funds will be collected. The funds that were collected will be used exclusively for their Foreclosure Pets Fund, which is a grants program for animal shelters, non-sheltered rescue/adoption groups and animal care and control agencies to establish, expand, or publicize services or programs that assist families caring for their pets during the current economic crisis.â€

The money donated to HSUS through this promotion, while not going directly to its anti-hunting campaign, would have freed up dollars from the organization’s general fund that could have been used to continue the attack on the rights of sportsmen.

“This once again proves that the sportsman’s voice is not to be taken lightly,†said USSA senior vice president Rick Story. “We hope that in the future, companies such as Meijer will consider how partnerships will be received before launching them.â€

Behler recognized that hunters and sportsmen are a huge customer base for Meijer and mentioned that the company had received messages and emails from concerned sportsmen that identified other sportsman-friendly national organizations that could be substituted for HSUS in helping pets.

The HSUS is America’s leading opponent of hunting, fishing and trapping. It led the charge in a 2006 ballot campaign to ban dove hunting in Meijer’s home state of Michigan, contributing $1.6 million to the effort. It opposes hunting on National Wildlife Refuges and other public lands. In fact, the organization is a plaintiff in an ongoing federal lawsuit to ban hunting on the refuges. HSUS does not operate or oversee animal shelters or have any legal controls over them.

Meijer is to be congratulated for quickly severing its ties to HSUS once it began hearing from sportsmen. Although the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance is satisfied with Meijer’s decision, the fact that the partnership ever took place is still cause for concern.

Meijer is a seller of sporting goods and hunting and fishing licenses and indicates on its website that it operates 182 locations throughout Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

The end result of this campaign once again proves that sportsmen can make a difference. Companies such as Iams, General Mills, Accor Hotels, Pet Safe, Sears and Ace Hardware also ended relationships with HSUS after thousands of sportsmen levied strong protest.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_126922.asp

I didn't catch the entire news item, but the part I saw said they're now also in trouble for charging almost 30% interest with something to do with ATM withdrawls.........

I'm also curious about quite why they're sponsoring the Mugabe regime to the tune of UK£50M / US$100M a year. - I'd be very suprised if they got anywhere near that amount back from the country in business.......... You could probably buy the entire country for a fraction of that amount! - Hopefully, Norman Lamb MP will get somewhere with his enquiry!

"The staff member concerned in all this communication was extremely unhelpful and consistantly refused to give me information, wouldn't even answer any of my queries about whether this would affect my credit rating in any way and even when her boss told her to give me information, she repeatedly failed to do so. Her name and title is:-

Martina Bakosova
Executive
Barclays Wealth Intermediaries and Corporates
Isle of Man"

This suggests to me that this individual is imposing her own personal views on the corporation, and is trying to avoid responsibility for it.

Perhaps Saeed can ask specifically what duties this person has, whether she speaks for the corporation, and what authority she has to disobey a directive from her own boss.

quote:

Originally posted by WannabeBwana:
"The staff member concerned in all this communication was extremely unhelpful and consistantly refused to give me information, wouldn't even answer any of my queries about whether this would affect my credit rating in any way and even when her boss told her to give me information, she repeatedly failed to do so. Her name and title is:-


This suggests to me that this individual is imposing her own personal views on the corporation, and is trying to avoid responsibility for it.

.

ABSA

A= ANOTHER
B= BIG
S= STUPID
A= ASSHOLE

BARCLAYS

B = BABOONS
A = APES
R = RODENTS
C = CLOWNS
L = LEECHES
A = AT
Y = YOUR
S = SERVICE

quote:

Originally posted by WannabeBwana:
"This suggests to me that this individual is imposing her own personal views on the corporation, and is trying to avoid responsibility for it.

I'd be prepared to bet that she, and a few others are trying very hard to avoid responsibility for it just about now!

"One of their "policy" reasons they gave was the necessity to deal with large cash transfers. They claimed that, in part, the anti-terror legislation to which they were subject made maintaining such accounts impractical. If that is true, then they have obviously likewise cut off their dealings with every automobile dealer, every retail seller of large consumer items, every airline and travel agency, and any other business who deals with large cash transactions. If they did this, however, they would effectively be limiting their future business to consumer accounts."



Saaed may get some answers here, but I am a Banker in Canada and the anti-moneylaudering laws have become ridiculous. They are driven by the US and affect all international Banks. These laws have forced us to end all kinds of relationships that we have hd no problem with for years and have made it very difficult to give anyone who regularly wires or receives wire transfers a good customer experience. The controls in place in Business accounts are more stringent than they are on personal, what likely happenned here was when the transfers started hapenning in a business account it tripped the electronic internal controls.
Barlcays has little choice in this matter, if the patterns of your transfers are suspect at all the penalites to them are huge. The penalties also apply if they tell you exactly which transfer or exactly what ativity triggered the review. They involve fines into the millions and JAIL terms for the individual officer who commits the infraction.

FWIW, the other industries you mention here rarely ever wire transfer large amounts internationally, the travel industry is almost entirely driven by credit card, the automotive industry rarely makes international transfers involving individuals. You are right about large cash transaction though, they are a thing of the past.

I take your point..... esp about the money laudering laws in all their forms. Indeed it cost me a bloody fortune and a lot of hassle to establish new accounts! - but surely anyone purchasing a car for example, whether with his own money or through a finance company would involve a large transfer of money somewhere along the line? - If it's acceptable for car dealerships etc, then I wonder why it's unacceptable for a safari company. Also the same restrictive laws apply to my new bank - and they don't seem to have any problrms at all with the way my transactions happen. - If it's easy for my new bank to handle, why is it so difficult for Barclays to handle all of a sudden.

Also if that were the case, why did they simply not tell me that was the reason OR let me have a copy of the secret policy? They seem determined not to tell me any reason for the sudden closures. They also seemed determined to make life as awkward as possible by giving me such short notice.

Also the transactions hadn't suddenly started at all. I've been using that account for that purpose since about 1990.

As to the travel industry being almost entirely credit card driven.... I don't know about the rest of the world, but the African travel industry in general and the hunting part of it in particular rarely, if ever accepts credit cards.

I have my doubts whether Saeed will get any answers - or at least, true answers. My guess is that he'll get excuses rather than honest answers.........Probably rather similar to that other statement about hunting......... but I sincerely hope he might also get a reversal of policy. - My bet is that he will. It won't affect me, but hopefully, it'll make life easier for other safari companies.

Not to hijack the thread but you mentioned credit cards. I have wondered why the safari business does not promote more credit card usage. It seems like you could pick up a lot of business that way. Is there a reason(s) why that is so?

We looked into it and decided it wasn't really an option. Firstly, everyone is afraid of fraud and are reluctant to grant the facility where it'll be used for large sums from very remote parts of Africa, secondly, most of the banks wanted to reserve some kind of time period where payment could be withdrawn and thirdly, because they usually wanted to charge something like 5% for the privilage.......... that's an impossible amount of money for us to absorb over the year and it's piss the clients off if we passed it onto them.

Instead, if there's a need for additional payments etc, we just let the client use our b gan to transfer the money over the internet.

To give you an idea of how hard these things are to organise over here, you can't even get an pay pal merchants account if you live anywhere in Africa!

That's interesting. Thanks for your reply Steve. I'm not familiar with overseas banking so I'm a bit surprised to hear that the fees were 5%. Over here they are about 3%.

5% at least for that kind of transaction....

Here is an interesting tidbit

"Tales of an African Frontier" J.A Hunter & Daniel P. Mannix

Page 219

On this page JA is talking about Fritz Schindelar one of the earliest PHs in Africa.

"Fritz was altogether a strange fellow. When he was guiding H. Barclay of Barclay's Bank and his two daughters, a Rhino charged the elder girl and put her up a tree"

Sounds like Barclays needs to be reminded of their roots!!!

It's been just a month and three days since I went public on this. At that time, I posted it on the forums and e-mailed it to various hunters and hunting magazines etc.

Since then, it's been all the way around the world passed on from hunter to hunter and hunter to non hunter etc.

Today, I got my own message back as part of a cc (copy to) from a hunter I don't know.

Now that's what I call a wonderful hunter support network! - My thanks to everyone for their support and especially to Saeed for applying so much leverage on something that affects all hunters worldwide.

I was glad to be of what little help I could be, even though it went over like a fart in church in a couple of places.

'Barclays lifeline for Mugabe'
Jun 15 2008 1:03PM
London - Barclays Bank PLC is being accused of giving Robert Mugabe's government a "financial lifeline," the Daily Telegraph reports on Saturday citing a source based in Africa and company documents.
Barclays Zimbabwean subsidiary lent the Mugabe regime $46m last year through its purchase of government and municipal bonds and is one of the main contributors to a government-run loan scheme for farm improvements called the Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement Facility, or Aspef, it said.

Barclays Group, based in London, has a 67% stake in Barclays Zimbabwe and reaped a dividend of $12m in 2006 through its subsidiary, while profits rose by 135% in 2007, according to company documents seen by the Daily Telegraph.

Patrick Smith, the editor of the influential newsletter "Africa Confidential," said: "It's evident that Barclays is providing a financial lifeline to the Mugabe regime," according to the report.

At least five ministers have received loans for farms seized from white Zimbabweans under the Aspef scheme, intended to boost agricultural production that has collapsed since the seizures begun, the Telegraph reports.

EU sanctions in Zimbabwe prohibit any UK bank from giving financial services to individuals connected with the government, the Daily Telegraph said.

- Dow Jones

Gentlemen,

I think we need to be a bit more realistic on what Barclays doing in Zimbabwe.

They are offering their services to everyone in Zimbabwe, and that must offer some sort of service to ordinary people as well.

I personally do not believe either boycuts or embargos work.

As they impact the ordinary person much more than they do those in power.

I am sure Steve will let us know what the final outcome is once it is sorted out.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Gentlemen,
I am sure Steve will let us know what the final outcome is once it is sorted out.

I most certainly will......... but as it's still ongoing at the moment, I'm sure everyone will understand that I can't comment further at this time.