I am quite convinced that banks employ monkeys.  Or, perhaps the bank is one big monkey that is full of nuts!  At the beginning of last month, I had an awful lot of money leaving my account and very little going in.  The reason for this was that I had left uni and was starting work and was taking on an office at the same time.

For this reason, cash flow was difficult and I incurred bank charges, because a cheque left my account that someone had paid in quite late and a transfer between two accounts with the same bank was not stopped.  For these two mistakes, can you believe that I was charged £100???

I phoned the bank to plead my case and they were having none of it.  I argued for 45 minutes, asking why an internal transfer was not stopped (“we don’t have the facilities to do that” – yes you do, you just don’t want to).  I asked why I had been charged an additional £28 admin fee for what is an automated process (a charge is given by default email/letter and no admin is involved).  They replied that it was not an admin fee (they used to call it this before the law deemed it an unreasonable cost for 2 minutes worth of work) but they could not explain what it was.  I asked why their system was out of date and they claimed that it wasn’t.  I pointed out that on my statement my money went in before the chargeable transaction came out and they argued that their charges are generated between 3 and 4am and that they did not know I would put in money.

I then argued that with banks going under in the recession (they themselves have been bought out) they should be bending over backwards to help people.  They said that they should not and that when I opened my account, I had signed the terms and conditions.  I protested violently here, because the terms and conditions that I signed offered a 24 hour grace period for you to realise that you are overdrawn and transfer some money.  These terms have changed countless times without my signature.

Anyway, to cut a short story long (hehe), I later discovered, after losing my bank card, that for SIX MONTHS, the very same cretins have been sending all my credit card bills, statements and letters with my account number, sort code and roll number on (and my name) to my old address, despite the fact that I’d changed them over straight away!!  This could have been very serious indeed, had the people living in my old house (or the dustmen) fancied a bit of identity theft.

Mark, (who I work with), was an absolute hero and marched me down to the bank and demanded to see a manager.  I get very nervous in these situations so he spoke on my behalf and pointed out that they were very quick to charge me for my mistake, but had, themselves,  made a serious error.   He asked them what they were going to do financially to resolve the matter.  Without a blink, the charges were removed.  I think she realised how serious the complaint could have been!!

To add insult to injury, I opened my Pink Sky bank account the other week with another bank.  I received all my cheque books and paying in books with the correct details on, then a debit card with “SKY PINK” on it.  Idiots.  Now I have to wait for a new one!!