Lloyds TSB is the fifth-largest banking group in the UK, but the bank's recent actions prove it still cares about the little guy. When it isn't partnering to sponsor the London Olympics in 2012, or recognizing the contribution of Asians to British society via the Asian Jewel Awards, the banking giant enjoys rooting through customer records and changing passwords it finds offensive, then refusing to change them back.

Steve Jetley of Shrewsbury discovered this firsthand, after he changed his telephone banking password to "Lloyds is pants" ("rubbish" to us American sods on the wrong side of the pond). Upon calling in, Jetley discovered that his "pants" password didn't match what was in the system. Instead, his password had been changed to "no it's not." Initially, this was no big deal.

"I thought it was actually quite a funny response," Jetley told the BBC. "But what really incensed me was when I was told I could not change it back to 'Lloyds is pants' because they said it was not appropriate. I asked if it was 'pants' they didn't like, and would 'Lloyds is rubbish' do? But they didn't think so."

"Barclays is better," didn't meet with approval either, seeing as how Barclays is another, even larger UK bank and a Lloyds competitor. At that point, Jetley was suddenly told that passwords had to be one word. When he offered "censorship" up as an appropriate password, he discovered passwords were required to be just one word, and no more than six letters long (not terribly secure, that). This undoubtedly came as something of a surprise, since his previous password had been accepted by the system, but the staff manager in question was apparently adamant.

Lloyds has since apologized, and told Jetley that the staff member had been let go. The bank also clarified its password policy, stating, "Customers can have any password they choose and it is not our policy to allow staff to change the password without the customer's permission." Lloyds did note that it is "disappointing" that Jetley chose to express his dissatisfaction by changing his password, indicating, perhaps, that he should have expressed his satisfaction by finding a different bank.

There's no word on whether or not Jetley got his "pants" back, but this isn't the first time Lloyds has come under public scrutiny for how it treats its customers. Earlier this year, Lloyds customers mounted a campaign to have certain charges refunded after the bank refused to do so. Oystar, a British group, released a parody of "I Fought the Law," called "I Fought the Lloyds." The song detailed the customers' struggles, and was popular enough to hit number 25 on the UK singles chart. Given these sorts of cases, we'd suggest Lloyds give Jetley back his coveted pants, and perhaps take a Carnegie course or two.