Building the Great Wall of China, Putting Man on the Moon, Eating 59 Hot Dogs in 12 minutes; all incredible achievements, but all outshone by my efforts this week to close my bank account.
Banks are phenomenally efficient when it comes to taking money from customers. I missed a payment on my credit card once. Within a week I’d been emailed, called, received a letter, a carrier pigeon, a visit from a knife wielding ninja who threatened that my ‘time would come’ if I didn’t clear my monthly minimum repayment of £2.41; anything to get the cash.
It seems strange then that when I tried to contact my bank because I was owed cash and wished to dispense with their services, they were nowhere to be found. Every link on the website just lead to ways to pay them cash. The FAQs were listed like so:
How do I pay you cash?
Where do I click to pay you money?
I owe you a fortune due to your ludicrous and unethical interest rates, where do I go to pay an amount that will be dwarfed by the monthly fee you'll put on top?
And so on. I scrolled down but with no luck. There were no answers relating to anything other than paying in money, borrowing more money or setting up new accounts. At the end it read:
“If your question has not been answered please ring this number:” All in big font, all easy enough to follow. What I didn’t see was the font that read “your calls will be charged at our premium rate, unless you call from a mobile, in which case we’ll just roll a handful of dice and that’s how many pounds you’ll owe us.”
I’ve been kind enough to enlarge it for you: “your calls will be charged at our premium rate, unless you call from a mobile, in which case we’ll just roll a handful of dice and that’s how many pounds you’ll owe us.”
Had I known that it would cost more than the funds in my account to withdraw, then perhaps I wouldn’t have bothered, but I picked up my mobile, dialled the numbers and entered a numerical labyrinth of Minotaurian proportions. The phone rang twice before switching to an automated response. I’m not entirely sure why they leave in the two rings. Are we supposed to believe the responder is a real person?
The toneless robot on the other end barked orders at me far too quickly for me to remember what I should do. FOR ISSUES WITH CARDS PRESS ONE NOW BUT FOR BALANCE INQUIRIES IT’S TWO AND NUMBER INFORMATION PRESS FOUR BUT NOT IF YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO ANOTHER MACHINE THEN PRESS FIFTY THREE GO GO GO.
I panicked and just pressed numbers at random. It must have done something because there was a long beeeeeeep and then it rang twice before being answered by another robot.
“You’re in a queue, but your custom and money is very important to us, so please do stay on the line.”
Greensleeves played. “You’re in a queue, but your custom and money is very important to us, so please do stay on the line.”
Greensleeves played some more. This ordeal was repeated for 10 minutes before I was finally put through to Jim.
“Hi, I’m Jim, you’re through to accounts.”
“I’d like to close my account please.”
“Ah, you’re in the wrong department, you need payments. I’ll put you through.”
I went through greensleeves again, but this time Miriam greeted me.
“Hi, I’m Miriam, you’re through to payments.”
“I’d like to close my account please.”
“Ah, you’re in the wrong department, you need ‘give us cash’. I’ll put you through.”
This went on for hours, weeks even, until my phone switched off because there wouldn’t be enough money in the world to pay my bill.
I’m thinking of opening a restaurant in the same manner. You pay on arrival. You’re seated and told your food will be with you shortly. You wait an hour to the sound of greensleeves before going to complain. There you have pay £5 to join a queue to tell a staff member called Mick you’re unhappy. He’ll charge you another fiver to tell you you’re in the wrong queue and you need to speak to Alice in accounts. All the while I’ll sit in my office and eat all the food myself before deciding at the end of business hours I’ve not had quite enough food so I’ll award myself a food ‘bonus.’
Sounds unrealistic yes, but if all the restaurants in England did it, then we might be onto something.
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You are a Jedi of hyperbole my friend.
ReplyDeleteI've just renewed my car insurance with a very similar string of events; 'how can I rape you of more money sir?' every 5mins. I feel I'll be eating in your restaurant soon as there isn't much that can be done.