I don't have a bank account
...see my other qotw posts for the obvious reasons.

However, my GF does.

Last year we were going on holiday, before we went we realised, as you do, that she would need a passport As the passport office is now just an extension of HMRC and the price has skyrocketed, we had to go to the bank to withdraw 200 quid.

Unfortunatly, despite her filling in change-of-address forms, it seems that they simply throw these in the bin rather than act on them, and as such when her cash-card expired they sent a replacement to her old address - an address that was now empty and for which she no longer had the keys - forcing us to go into the bank (Euuurrrggghh) to withdraw the money.

She has:

1 photo ID card
1 bank statment
1 bank card from a different bank
1 electricity bill from the new address

...so unless someone with the same (very unusual) name, who looks just like her has broken into our house and lifted a utility bill, then there can be no doubt that this person is who she says she is.

This is also not the first time she has been in that bank, and indeed, went to school with one of the (on duty) tellers.

Would they let her have the money? Of course not.

I hate banks with the passion that the jews hated Hitler, and so this riles me straight away.

If they'd given her a debit card when she asked (she had over 12k in the account) then she would most likely have paid for this passport on-line or some such other way, but no...she doesn't pass a CREDIT check for a DEBIT card...(throws hands up in excacberation)

Anyway, the teller berates her for not informing them that she's moved - she did, and this is THEIR fuck up, not hers, and then proceeds to tell her that she needs a passport of driving licence to get to her money.

At this point, I said:

"See that door over there?"
"Yes" replies dosh-monkey.
"No-one is coming in our out of it, until she has 200 quid in her hands, got it."

I then proceed to drag a couple of chairs from the personal-wanker part of the bank and wedge them under the door.

...to the screams from the same monkey that "I'll call the police."

Now that made me VERY angry, and so started, "Don't make idle threats; get the old bill in her, then we'll see what is thought of your blatent theft. Go on, get on with it."

He then makes a call - to his manager, not the old bill - fucking bottler*, then comes back and says;

"Let's have another look at that ID..."

...and oddly, 200 quid appears.

I mean Christ on a stick - it's 200 quid, there's over 12k in the account - if someone was scamming, I think they might go for a bit more than enough to buy a king sized fucking mars bar.

I think they must be trained in either, incompetence, and/or to hold on to your dosh for as long as possible.

I've don't have a bank account - I've been clean for over two years.



* mind you, I suspect in this country, trying to get to your own money from a bank aftery their daft and unreasonable refusal is liable to get me around 7-10.
(dchurch bah, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 7:40, Reply)