Music lovers prepare to suffer a fate worse than the Cheeky Girls. Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, has teamed up with a band called Oystar, a kind of budget Chas & Dave, to create a protest song about bank charges.

To the tune of the Clash’s classic anthem, I Fought the Law, the unlikely ensemble sing: “I fought the Lloyds and the Lloyds lost. They even paid the interest and the court costs.” With a download fee of only 50p and a release date of January 7, the plan is to get this song to No 1 to coincide with the start of the Office of Fair Trading’s legal challenge to bank charges in the High Court.

While the musical talent of those involved is questionable, the idea is good fun and worthy of support – particularly as the banks seem to have stepped up the pursuit of profits through unfair overdraft charges in recent months. Sadly, they have been helped enormously in this cause by the fecklessness of the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

In the summer, the chief City watchdog introduced a waiver allowing the banks to delay dealing with customers’ refund claims until after the test case was resolved. At the same time, it said that overdraft charges could continue subject to certain conditions, chiefly that customers in financial difficulty were not exploited. But as we report on pages 10-11, the banks are not abiding by the rules. There is also evidence that some banks have been using the waiver as an excuse to shelve complaints about credit card charges, even though the FSA made it explicitly clear that the hold applies only to current account fees. The banks have even managed to turn the waiver to their advantage by refusing to discuss complaints about one-off fees. (Before the waiver most banks would usually reduce or remove the odd charge if customers complained or had made a genuine mistake.)

Despite all this, the FSA has decided that the waiver is working well and should be renewed. This is either wilful blindness or naivety, neither of which are qualities that you would want in a financial watchdog.

To preorder your copy of the bank charges protest song, text the word “bankers” to 82822.

Hip, Hip, hooray to speedier buying, and helping the planet

The self-serving alliance of estate agents, TV personalities and surveyors that campaigned tirelessly against the introduction of home information packs (Hips) has finally had to concede defeat.

After endless dithering and the odd U-turn, the Government has decided that from Friday, December 14, every home must have a Hip before it can be put on the market – irrespective of how many bedrooms it has.

While every new layer of official bureaucracy should be met with caution, the well-organsied campaign against Hips was decidedly overblown. The basic idea of providing local authority searches and information about a property’s energy efficiency up front offers many practical benefits at a relatively low cost. When Hips have bedded in, they should speed up the buying process, reduce costs for first-time buyers and eventually perhaps contribute to reducing carbon emissions. Sellers may have to pay a fee of about £400 but unless they are leaving the property market altogether they will benefit from receiving a Hip at no cost on the next home they buy.

The energy assessment report is the most expensive and controversial element of Hips because it requires an army of box tickers to make costly home visits. But if this process encourages people to insulate their homes more effectively and therefore reduces carbon emmissions, it will be worth it. It is also a neat way of meeting European regulations.

There is no evidence that Hips becoming mandatory for homes with three or more bedrooms in September has had any discernible impact on the property market. Despite what the doommongers said, few people have decided against selling their homes on the basis of such a relatively small fee. In many cases, sellers have deferred payment until their home is actually sold.

There is no doubt that ministers handled the introduction of Hips in a typically incompetant fashion but those who objected on such spurious grounds should now eat their words.

Scrooge of the Year – your chance to take revenge

What do ING Direct, Norwich Union and the energy industry have in common? Not much you may think – the first sells savings accounts, the second insurance and the third heat and light.

But there is one overriding theme that unites them: they have each treated some, many or all their customers with contempt this year. ING Direct has failed to keep its savings rate competitive; Norwich Union has maintained an appalling record for rejecting critical-illness claims; and the energy industry has collectively failed to lower prices in line with cheaper wholesale costs.

The respective failings of these companies make them front-runners in our Scrooge of the Year competition 2007. But there are also plenty of other cold-hearted, penny-pinching or downright greedy companies out there that are also contenders.

If you have received bad treatment at the hands of any business this year, take your revenge by nominating them for Scrooge of the Year at timesonline.co.uk/moneycentral. We will publish the results on December 15.