Consumers
What is a carpetbagger?
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Carpetbagging began in the early 1990s, following the conversion and subsequent windfall received by members of the Abbey National. Seeing a way to make short-term gains, and unconcerned about long-term costs, numerous people opened accounts (often with as little as £100) in many of the remaining building societies with the sole aim of receiving a windfall should they convert. Subsequently, some carpetbaggers have used their membership rights to try to force societies to convert by putting forward resolutions at their general meetings. The term carpetbagger comes from the American Civil War, when people from the north packed all their belongings into carpetbags and headed south to lay claim to land which was not theirs. It was first applied to those seeking building society windfalls in early 1996.
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