I was up fairly late this
morning, as we spent a late night watching The Mighty Boosh
series three box set again. It was a bit irritating though because I wanted to
get out and about on work related errands today. After a couple of fried egg
sandwiches, we headed to town as I needed to go to the bank and sort out
Santander’s latest fuck up; I had to cancel my card as a couple of weeks ago as
there were a couple of transactions that were made without my knowledge, only
to find out on the phone last night that my card and PIN were sent to my old
address. Luckily I was informed that the card hadn’t been used, so I had to
cancel the card again before I had even got it in my hands, and order a new one
to the address where I actually live. To give Santander their due, although
they do fuck things up on a regular basis, they are quite good at fixing
things. I don’t understand why they bother to fuck things up at all. My theory
is that they do it on purpose just so they can show off about how brilliant
they are at sorting problems out. Santander are like a mechanic sneaking into car
parks and fiddling about and making cars break down so that they can show off
about how good at mending broken cars they are. The money that disappeared from
my account has now been put back in, which is pretty fast for them, a few years
ago I used an indoor cash machine only to find out that I’d used a machine with
no notes in, but the machine clicked and whirred as if it had given me my
money. When I went to complain at the counter, I was told that I would have to
wait up to 28 days until the money went back into my account.
I understand that our money as
a concept isn’t physically in the bank, and that every single account holder
has a box round the back with our name on containing whatever amount of money
our statements say is in the account. However, I assume that banks do contain
some money, and that the amount that I should have, but didn’t receive from the
machine could have simply been given back to me. Failing that, if it only took a
split second to make a blunder, why would it take 28 days to fix it? If I drop
a cup on the kitchen floor and it smashes into several pieces, I don’t wait 28
days before getting the dustpan and brush out. In the end it didn’t take that
long for the money to go back in, so I didn’t get round to writing a letter of
complaint. People do tend to get complacent about such things as their bank
accounts, and don’t think about changing. I would love to find a bank that
weren’t incompetent, but finding the time to go out and do it is the main
issue. I’ve had this Santander account since the early 1990s, (when I got my
first job that didn’t pay cash) when it was called Abbey National, so at least
they have some basic idea of my financial comings and goings and are (to
mention something else they do very well) is flagging up what appears to be
suspect activity on my account, apart from this time of course when they just
went ahead and allowed someone to dip in and help themselves. As good as their
intentions are they flag up the suspect activity when I’m in the middle of
paying for something on my card and ending up looking silly in a shop. Having
had accounts with Barclays and Natwest before, I know all about shit banks, and
certainly would recommend that Santander customers use extreme caution and
check every line of their statements.
This all served to put my day
behind schedule, as I had wanted to scout around suitable venues for a daytime
music event I am planning. Although I am pleased to have found venue number two,
I ran right out of time to find any more.
===
My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle
for 99p a month (link)
