By Steve Conley, Academy of Life Planning & Get SAFE
On Christmas Day, a man received a text message from Lloyds Bank demanding repayment of a loan.
He had lost his job during the pandemic, was living in a friend’s spare room, and doing his best to hold his life together.
The message arrived just before Christmas lunch. It was automated. It told him to contact the collections department.
That one message — sent by a machine — pushed him to the brink of suicide.
Lloyds later apologised, calling it “an error.” They offered him £50 compensation. But the real issue wasn’t the message or the money — it was the system that allowed it to happen.
[Source: REAL LIFE SCROOGE: Lloyds Bank customer considered killing himself after being sent text on Christmas Day demanding he repay loan, The Sun 2021.]
The Automation of Cruelty
Automation is often sold to us as efficiency.
But when deployed without conscience, it becomes a weapon of thoughtless harm.
A text message isn’t neutral.
It carries meaning, timing, and consequence.
When sent to a person in despair, it can become the spark that ignites tragedy.
Somewhere inside Lloyds Bank, an algorithm was designed to send debt reminders on schedule. No one asked whether Christmas Day was an appropriate time. No one thought about the emotional state of the recipient. No one took responsibility.
In modern finance, “the system” has replaced the soul.
From Structural Failure to Structural Compassion
At Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation), we witness what happens when people are crushed by impersonal systems — not only through fraud, but through lawful cruelty dressed as “procedure.”
Every week, survivors tell us stories of lost homes, broken families, and financial institutions that treat them as liabilities rather than lives.
These are not one-off mistakes. They are symptoms of structurally untrustworthy design — systems built to prioritise shareholder returns over human outcomes.
What’s needed is the opposite: structural compassion.
A redesign of finance that treats wellbeing as the primary metric of success.
This is not sentimentalism — it’s sound economics.
Gallup’s global research proves that high-trust systems outperform low-trust ones in productivity, profitability, and resilience. When people feel cared for, they act responsibly. When they are humiliated, they disengage.
Debt Is Not a Moral Failing
The Lloyds customer said, “Let me be clear – I want to repay this debt. And as soon as I am able to I will. But to be chased on Christmas Day is just unacceptable.”
That sentence should be printed on every boardroom wall in the City.
Debt is not moral failure.
It’s often a reflection of systemic shocks — redundancy, illness, bereavement, or economic collapse.
When banks treat debtors as defective, they deepen the trauma that created the debt in the first place.
True financial recovery begins not with collection, but with compassion — with systems that ask what happened, not demand payment.
Replacing Extraction with Empowerment
At the Academy of Life Planning, we are pioneering a new financial model — one that puts human capital before financial capital.
Through our GAME Plan, we teach individuals and planners to design lives that are resilient, purposeful, and autonomous.
At Get SAFE, we extend that vision to those who have already been harmed — helping victims of financial exploitation rebuild their confidence, recover their assets, and reclaim their agency.
Because the antidote to financial cruelty is not another product.
It’s empowerment.
It’s ensuring no one faces the machine alone.
A Christmas Lesson for the Financial System
The Lloyds story is not about one text message.
It’s about a financial system that has forgotten what it means to serve.
Technology should amplify humanity, not erase it.
This Christmas, may every banker, policymaker, and regulator reflect on this:
A single automated message nearly cost a man his life.
The next reform we need isn’t digital — it’s moral.
It’s time to rebuild finance around the one capital that truly matters: the human spirit.
If you or someone you know has been affected by financial exploitation or emotional distress, contact Get SAFE at http://www.get-safe.org.uk
Or call the Samaritans on 116 123 — free, 24 hours a day.
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About Get SAFE
Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation) is a citizen-led initiative that empowers victims of financial harm to investigate, document, and pursue redress.
Through AI-enabled training, structured playbooks, and collaborative fellowship, Get SAFE transforms victims into advocates — ensuring that truth and justice are not luxuries, but rights.
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Goliathon turns victims of financial exploitation into confident, capable citizen investigators who can build professional-grade cases using structured training, emotional support, and independent AI.
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Every year, thousands across the UK lose their savings, pensions, and peace of mind to corporate financial exploitation — and are left to face the aftermath alone.
Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation) exists to change that.
We’re creating a national lifeline for victims — offering free emotional recovery, life-planning, and justice support through our Fellowship, Witnessing Service, and Citizen Investigator training.
We’re now raising £20,000 to:
Register Get SAFE as a Charity (CIO)
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Join us at: http://www.aolp.info/getsafe
steve.conley@aolp.co.uk | +44 (0)7850 102070
Academy of Life Planning 