Card troubles
It’s a rare occasion when one makes the BBC 6 O’ Clock television news, as I did last night. Or think I may have done.
Here’s a link to the report concerned – as covered on the website of the – DAILY MAIL
Yesterday late morning, as is my fate on a Friday, I was sent out to purchase the weekend food shop from a well-known supermarket and I reckon I got off pretty lightly with a spend of around the £100 mark.
(As background I should explain that I habitually operate my finances via a basic float in cash and my bank debit card and I used the latter to pay at check-out without incident).
Having reached my car, loaded up and disposed of the trolley in the nearest trolley park, I then decided to fill up with fuel as my dashboard was informing me that I currently had an outstanding range on my tank of 130 miles – being a bloke, I regard anything approaching 100 miles as a signal I need to add more fuel.
Thus I stopped off at the supermarket’s on-site garage and filled up. Upon reaching the shop to pay, I offered my debit card to the lady at the desk and had it declined by the hand-held machine. Twice. With a queue gathering behind me, embarrassed, I immediately switched to my credit card and paid that way.
Back home – and intending shortly to set off to my next meeting – I therefore immediately called the ‘customer services’ number on the back of my debit card first to find out what the hell was going on.
About a year ago I had an incident where my bank’s fraud team had rung me to ask if I’d just bought US$300’s worth of groceries on my credit card in New York State, to which I’d responded in the negative (“Certainly not, I’m speaking to you from downtown Isleworth”).
Within forty minutes – after various security questions and processes – both I and the bank having agreed that, when I had been on a visit to the thanksgiving service of my uncle who lived in New York State two months previously, some bastard must have either ‘acquired’ my credit cards details, or otherwise cloned them … and now, a few weeks further down the line (so as not to raise immediate suspicion?) was endeavouring to begin a campaign of using it to strip me of the contents of my bank account … and thus my credit card was immediately cancelled and I was sent a new one through the post.
Fright over. What’s more I paid fulsome tribute to the bank’s representative I spoke to for having got in touch with me so swiftly. The bank’s security systems seemed to be working efficiently – who could possibly object to that?
But back to yesterday.
After getting through to the bank’s debit card customer services line, I was then confronted by what I regard as the bane of my life – anonymous ‘big company’ automated telephone systems. All I, as a 64-year old, wanted to do was speak to a human being. That just wasn’t possible – instead I was given three options, none of which I wanted and all of which required that I had (1) previously signed up to online banking (which I hadn’t) and (2) my personal identification number at the ready (which I didn’t, not least because I didn’t know I had one).
Somewhere in the process I was helpfully advised “For training purposes, this call may be recorded”.
It is possible that any recording of my call yesterday will be played out over the PA speakers at the bank staff’s annual Christmas party for 2016 because, after about ten minutes of fruitless trying to ‘work my way’ around the system in my effort to speak to a human being – any human being – I finally gave up the unequal struggle and let rip with a 70 second tirade of four letter-word-littered frustration and invective at the iniquities of the modern world as deployed my bank in particular.
Regrouping at my computer desk, I then switched to ringing the customer services number listed on the back of my credit card and – after three ‘trial and error’ phone calls – eventually worked out how to ‘cheat’ the system into letting me hang on to speak to someone in person.
When I got through I explained that I was only ringing them on my credit card customer services number because trying to talk to the debit card version in my current circumstances was akin to beating one’s head against a brick wall.
In short order – but after a wait of about five minutes hanging on the line – I think I got directed to someone who could assist with my debit card problem. This took about twenty minutes, after which the gent concerned and I seemed to agree that – from my bank account’s history – I had not yet been defrauded; that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my debit card; and that therefore perhaps something may have been wrong at the supermarket garage’s paying desk end.
I was assured that my debit card was in full working order. However, in the circumstances would I like to be send a new one?
Not really, I replied. If my debit card was indeed still in full working order, why would I bother to cancel it and ask for another one to be sent out?
We agreed that I’d go across the road and buy something – anything – from my local newsagent’s, just to confirm that my debit card was working okay.
Ten minutes later I was back on the bank’s credit card customer services number, trying again to be put through to the debit card people (it was the only way I could think of getting through to them) in order to register that my debit card had just been declined for the third time in succession yesterday.
It took about fifteen minutes to do this because (of course) it was impossible to be put through to the person I’d previously been speaking to … and therefore I had to go back through all the security etc. procedures from the beginning afresh once again, simply to establish that I was who I was.
By the end of all this, I was told that my current (three times-declined) debit card was still ‘live’ should I be lucky enough to find any outlet that would accept it, and in the meantime – at some point in the next four days – I would receive a brand new debit card through the post which I should begin using as and when it did – simultaneously destroying my ‘old’ one, naturally.
[As an aside to the above, I’d like to record here that – although I got to my next meeting an hour and a quarter late – it all went very well.]
Then came the item on last night’s BBC television 6 O’Clock News …