I do my bit for banking....
by being permanently overdrawn.

Back in '91, me and my mates were planning our first Eastern Europe excursion, now that it was readily available for easy tourism.

I was paid monthly, but my mates were paid weekly, and were shitter with money than I was/am. So every week, they had been giving me money to look after for them, which I duly spent knowing that I would have a month's wages on which the three of us could get wankered with come pay day.

All well and good.

Come pay day, I calls at the bank, it rhymes with Farclays, and was located in St Anne's Square, Manchester. I puts in my card to the machine, and the bastard eats it, and gives me some tosh about being overdrawn past my limit.

So, I gets to the office and starts making calls. The woman I spoke too told me that my card was taken because I was overdrawn, but I argued that I would not be overdrawn now, as a month's salary went in this very day. She said she couldn't confirm that my money had gone in, because she couldn't see it on that night's report.

I work in IT, and knew a lot about how the BACS Systems worked, and knew that in the relatively early days of IT the report could be re-ran on request, as we had done this with production tests.

Eventually, she does as she is told. She finds my money, and tells me that I can have access to my cash, as long as I agree to pay a percentage of my overdraft. Great! We agree that they can take 20% and I can draw the rest.

Now, I have no card, no cheque book, no photo ID (except a membership card for a famous North West nite-club with me looking seriously off my tits in the picture), but this woman agrees it can all be sorted if I turn up at St Anne's Sq branch (not my regular branch, as that had been shut) and ask for X and she will let me sign some forms and release my cash.

So off I trots. I meet X, who is the very sort of bank worker that gives me a reason to hate banks. Despite my telephone agreement, this bitch is not for giving me my money.

I want to escalate the issue, but she won't get me the manager.

Pushed to the limit, I jump up on the counter, put my arse in one of the money exchange trays under the security glass, and sit.

I then start telling everyone that these folks are robbing cnuts, and I'm not going till I get my money.

I actually get some cheers from other folk in the queue, as the staff frantically huddle in the back. After a few minutes of this, a form is produced, and I get my money.

I immediately took my overdraft to another bank, similar to Hellifax. They are cnuts too.

Length: All the way from Berlin to Budapest.
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 8:10, Reply)