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Bo Jo v Germany
Thursday, July 19th, 2007 12:06 amThe Conservative Mayoral candidate takes on Germany!
Thursday, July 19th, 2007
Bo Jo v Germany
Thursday, July 19th, 2007 12:06 amThe Conservative Mayoral candidate takes on Germany!
Stupid Bankers
Thursday, July 19th, 2007 02:25 pmI am unimpressed with electronic and phone banking. I resisted online banking for years; every time I weakened there was another horror story in the news about hackers emptying bank accounts and other such stuff.
For the past month or so, however, I have been using online banking. Previous to that I just used phone banking, which pretty much does the trick most of then time. Depends what service you’re after, I guess: horses for courses.
It seems that nothing has changed with the digital age, though. It makes you wonder just how relatively quickly things moved before the IT revolution. When a money transaction involved bits of paper flying around between branches, three days or so to clear wasn’t unreasonable as records caught up. In the meantime, banks made profits on money in limbo.
Anyway, the story is thus: I went overdrawn without realising it and was sent a letter with some alacrity by the bank who charged me £30 for the privilege. Later that day, when I got home, I logged on to transfer funds to my account to sort it out only to find that they’d slapped a further £30 charge on in such a fashion and in such haste that I couldn’t possibly have responded to the first letter much less the second charge. I transferred the money and lo and behold, next morning there was a third £30 charge on my account; this time labelled ‘commission’.
I printed a statement and called them to complain. To be fair, they said they would refund £60 (I really ought to download and print off the letter about unfair bank charges, but that would mean the hassle of opening a spare account just in case they got stroppy). This morning when I logged on, I find that firstly the charges are still there and secondly, the transaction order has changed to show that the charges were all made before I transferred funds across. Happily I have a print out showing the original order.
I phoned the bank a second time and they told me that the charges had indeed been refunded, but that it often takes four days for them to show up online. So instant banking online takes four days now, compared to the three days of yore. And no explanation as to how the order of events changed over night.
Bloody banks.
For the past month or so, however, I have been using online banking. Previous to that I just used phone banking, which pretty much does the trick most of then time. Depends what service you’re after, I guess: horses for courses.
It seems that nothing has changed with the digital age, though. It makes you wonder just how relatively quickly things moved before the IT revolution. When a money transaction involved bits of paper flying around between branches, three days or so to clear wasn’t unreasonable as records caught up. In the meantime, banks made profits on money in limbo.
Anyway, the story is thus: I went overdrawn without realising it and was sent a letter with some alacrity by the bank who charged me £30 for the privilege. Later that day, when I got home, I logged on to transfer funds to my account to sort it out only to find that they’d slapped a further £30 charge on in such a fashion and in such haste that I couldn’t possibly have responded to the first letter much less the second charge. I transferred the money and lo and behold, next morning there was a third £30 charge on my account; this time labelled ‘commission’.
I printed a statement and called them to complain. To be fair, they said they would refund £60 (I really ought to download and print off the letter about unfair bank charges, but that would mean the hassle of opening a spare account just in case they got stroppy). This morning when I logged on, I find that firstly the charges are still there and secondly, the transaction order has changed to show that the charges were all made before I transferred funds across. Happily I have a print out showing the original order.
I phoned the bank a second time and they told me that the charges had indeed been refunded, but that it often takes four days for them to show up online. So instant banking online takes four days now, compared to the three days of yore. And no explanation as to how the order of events changed over night.
Bloody banks.
Stupid Bankers
Thursday, July 19th, 2007 02:25 pmI am unimpressed with electronic and phone banking. I resisted online banking for years; every time I weakened there was another horror story in the news about hackers emptying bank accounts and other such stuff.
For the past month or so, however, I have been using online banking. Previous to that I just used phone banking, which pretty much does the trick most of then time. Depends what service you’re after, I guess: horses for courses.
It seems that nothing has changed with the digital age, though. It makes you wonder just how relatively quickly things moved before the IT revolution. When a money transaction involved bits of paper flying around between branches, three days or so to clear wasn’t unreasonable as records caught up. In the meantime, banks made profits on money in limbo.
Anyway, the story is thus: I went overdrawn without realising it and was sent a letter with some alacrity by the bank who charged me £30 for the privilege. Later that day, when I got home, I logged on to transfer funds to my account to sort it out only to find that they’d slapped a further £30 charge on in such a fashion and in such haste that I couldn’t possibly have responded to the first letter much less the second charge. I transferred the money and lo and behold, next morning there was a third £30 charge on my account; this time labelled ‘commission’.
I printed a statement and called them to complain. To be fair, they said they would refund £60 (I really ought to download and print off the letter about unfair bank charges, but that would mean the hassle of opening a spare account just in case they got stroppy). This morning when I logged on, I find that firstly the charges are still there and secondly, the transaction order has changed to show that the charges were all made before I transferred funds across. Happily I have a print out showing the original order.
I phoned the bank a second time and they told me that the charges had indeed been refunded, but that it often takes four days for them to show up online. So instant banking online takes four days now, compared to the three days of yore. And no explanation as to how the order of events changed over night.
Bloody banks.
For the past month or so, however, I have been using online banking. Previous to that I just used phone banking, which pretty much does the trick most of then time. Depends what service you’re after, I guess: horses for courses.
It seems that nothing has changed with the digital age, though. It makes you wonder just how relatively quickly things moved before the IT revolution. When a money transaction involved bits of paper flying around between branches, three days or so to clear wasn’t unreasonable as records caught up. In the meantime, banks made profits on money in limbo.
Anyway, the story is thus: I went overdrawn without realising it and was sent a letter with some alacrity by the bank who charged me £30 for the privilege. Later that day, when I got home, I logged on to transfer funds to my account to sort it out only to find that they’d slapped a further £30 charge on in such a fashion and in such haste that I couldn’t possibly have responded to the first letter much less the second charge. I transferred the money and lo and behold, next morning there was a third £30 charge on my account; this time labelled ‘commission’.
I printed a statement and called them to complain. To be fair, they said they would refund £60 (I really ought to download and print off the letter about unfair bank charges, but that would mean the hassle of opening a spare account just in case they got stroppy). This morning when I logged on, I find that firstly the charges are still there and secondly, the transaction order has changed to show that the charges were all made before I transferred funds across. Happily I have a print out showing the original order.
I phoned the bank a second time and they told me that the charges had indeed been refunded, but that it often takes four days for them to show up online. So instant banking online takes four days now, compared to the three days of yore. And no explanation as to how the order of events changed over night.
Bloody banks.