Nobody likes a bully. These days they come in all shapes and sizes, not just the big guy in the playground or the teenage gang. There’s cyber and verbal bullying to cope with too, but Money Matters is most concerned with the subject of financial bullying.

It’s not a new topic, but it shows no signs of letting up. It’s the big, bad company that doesn’t care whether or not you leave them; they’ll always find someone else to take your place and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Dictating terms without considering the supplier’s circumstances

Dictating terms that take no consideration of the circumstances of the supplier is one of their worst habits. A good friend of mine runs his own small business, just him, not even the dog. His cash flow depends entirely on him being paid for the work he does when he does it, not months later. He works for a few big companies, none of which ever pays him on time. They tell him how many days credit they are going to take then proceed to double it in reality. My friend was recently told by one company that the terms were being extended from 60 to 90 days. He says he would be happy if they honoured 90 days because they haven’t ever done so thus far!

This column has often documented the lack of personal care and attention afforded to small businesses by the High Street banks. They would rather bow and scrape to the US tax authorities and their FATCA forms, that are completely unintelligible, than they would call up a small business proprietor to see if he or she needed any help with their business.

Banks don’t consider the effect on small businesses

Have you seen these FATCA forms? They are allegedly to establish whether you have any ‘American blood’ in you in terms of business ownership. One simple question on an email would save hours of pain and stress, but do the banks consider the effect on small businesses of simply rolling these forms out ‘left, right and centre’? No, of course they don’t.

It was interesting to read this month of the reasons behind the merger talks between Sainsbury’s and Asda. They are concerned that our shopping habits are changing away from the weekly ‘big shop’, partly due to online ordering, but also as a result of a return to more local shopping.

Go on the British public – take a stance and let’s see if we can make the point to even more of these Big Firm bullies.