You could not make this up!

We should have a new topic category on THE RUST called “YOU COULD NOT MAKE THIS UP“.

I spoke to a colleague who mistakenly believed that organising the redirection of mail from his partner’s old address to her new one might be a simple matter.

It was so badly mishandled by Royal Mail that, not only did she fail to receive any re-directed mail at her new home (as requested), but instead the occupier of her old home began having his mail re-directed to her new address!

I had a similar type of issues with my Nationwide Credit cards.

I needed to order a new pin number.

The Nationwide credit card team is totally different from its banking team. When I called the credit card team, as security, I was required to answer a set of inane or unanswerable questions. Inevitably, I failed with flying colours.

So – mindful of their advertising campaign – I presented myself at a Nationwide branch. I was again told that I had too speak to the Nationwide credit card team as this was a matter with which they could not help.

When I expressed my anger as the card in question, in bold letters, states it is Nationwide Debit Card, a helpful assistant called the credit card team.

I was assure that the pin number would arrive in 3-5 days. It took 8. However, then armed with my new pin number, I attempted to use my card – only for the card not to work because it was apparently now “frozen”.

An assistant in another branch was deputed to the case. She said I had to activate and “unfreeze” the block, but I wasn’t to use an ATM as it might just swallow the card.

So I returned to the local branch, where (again), initially I was informed that they could not assist. however, I asked the teller  to “walk me through” the in-house ATM in order to make the card operational. This worked. Estimated time spent:- 10 hours. Cost involved: £10+.

Out of curiosity, I had applied for a small loan for gardening improvements. I  was curious to see how modern banking dealt with this.

Although the assistant was helpful, I soon realised that my previous understanding (of the helpful bank manager with powers and discretion) no longer applied and in place was a computerised application.

Again I suffered numerous questions and warnings to protect the bank, but eventually my loan was approved in principle.

One thing has not changed: if you want to borrow money from a bank you need to make a fail-proof case of why you don’t need it.