The Virtual Pub
Come Inside... => Saloon Bar => Topic started by: ice and a slice on June 22, 2007, 05:55:54 PM
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A SENIOR MOMENT - I HOPE I HAVE THEM LIKE THIS........... A 98 year old woman wrote this to her bank. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in The Times.
Dear Sir,
I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay myplumber last month. By my calculations, three 'nanoseconds' must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement which, I admit,has been in place for only eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account ?30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.
My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.
I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal,
overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.
From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.
My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.
Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete.
I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.
Pleas note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his / her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.
In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be
shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.
As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows:
1 -- To make an appointment to see me.
2 -- To query a missing payment.
3 -- To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4 -- To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5 -- To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6 -- To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7 -- To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required. A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorised Contact.)
8 -- To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 8
9 -- To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering
service.
While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.
Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.
May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.
Your Humble Client
(Remember: This was written by a 98 year old woman;
DOESN'T SHE MAKE YOU PROUD!!? )
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Where are the Affs when you need them ::)
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Where are the Affs when you need them ::)
No sorry you lost me there. Affs???
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Sorry.
The Affs = a poster of prodigious memory who could always be relied upon to post a link to the last time a particular joke/post had been used.
Meaning that one is so old it's got whiskers on it.
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Sorry.
The Affs = a poster of prodigious memory who could always be relied upon to post a link to the last time a particular joke/post had been used.
Meaning that one is so old it's got whiskers on it.
Oops - sorry redface:
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Sorry.
The Affs = a poster of prodigious memory who could always be relied upon to post a link to the last time a particular joke/post had been used.
Meaning that one is so old it's got whiskers on it.
Oops - sorry redface:
No matter... We all do it at one time or another.
I would like to think that it was once a true story.
... even if the cast does change from time to time... ;)
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Its a repost but not from this site, I think I originally saw it where the big boys hang out
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To be honest, and this is not to knock Ice n Slice as we have all been caught this way, I have seen this on many sites and have had a number of people email it to me ~ all swearing that they know someone who knows the "old lady".
Another urban myth I'm afraid ~ though it would be nice if it was true.
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To be honest, and this is not to knock Ice n Slice as we have all been caught this way, I have seen this on many sites and have had a number of people email it to me ~ all swearing that they know someone who knows the "old lady".
Another urban myth I'm afraid ~ though it would be nice if it was true.
It (or a very close version of it) was pinned on the wall of my bank above the managers desk in 1985. So don't start a forum copyright issue now. I'd say it's probably well out of copyright by now, it dates way back to the circulate by fax days.. confused:
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So don't start a forum copyright issue now.
AWWW, I was looking forward to the involvement of SOLICITORS !!!! ( and larger than yours, dads )
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Its a repost but not from this site, I think I originally saw it where the big boys hang out
The Latrines ?? rubschin:
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On the subject of useless banks, phoned Crappy National twice last week to cancel a dd the Mrs had set up to help poor orphoned dogs with tourettes or some such bollocks. Ten security qurstions later i got to the nitty gritty and their system 'crashed'. Lovely foreign lady told me to 'ok call later sometime ok, i hope this service has been of use...' hung up Banghead
Went to bank today to perform this simple task and was informed that they could no longer perform said task over counter due to propensity of errors. How can it be cocked up more by at least one half capable individual (me) talking to them? Are they quite sure that speaking to an Arab is more likely to be successful?
And the worst thing about it, my rant. The shouting, swearing, threatening to take my custom elsewhere, moral highground, gathering support from other customers, ridiculing banking systems et al were... non-existent. The girl behind the counter was well mannered, understanding and simply gorgeous redface:
So i asked for a statement, a re-iisue of checkbook etc etc etc and enjoyed 5 minutes of her time. A younger me would probably have requested her phone number to sort the issue, if you can't sort out the dd love at least allow me to make a deposit! When did i get old? noooo:
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Mrs. Barman has been trying to close an account with Nat West (spit) since May 7th.
Quite simple you would have thought - transfer remaining funds to a Barclays account then close aforementioned Nat West (spit) account.
Of course, we could have just written a cheque and told them to fuck off when it came to collecting the fees (it is a business account) but being nice, respectable people we decided to do it properly.
What a complete shower of useless shite those people are! Unbelievable that, nearly at the end of June we still don?t have our money.
I really wouldn?t trust Nat West (spit) to look after? um, well something of very little value ever again.
Complete utter, utter useless bastards. angry037
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All the banks have signed up to a code of conduct that sets time scales for dealing with transfers of accounts to another bank. They also all have codes of practice, including details of compensation payable if they break them. These codes form part of your contract with the bank. Write to them with details of your complaint, ask for a copy of their code of practice and tell them you want compo. You'll be amazed how fast they will then move to do as you ask.
When I retired I activated the insurance policy with MBNA that covered exactly the circumstances I found myself in. The policy duly paid out but MBNA still claimed I owed them a vast amount of "interest, fees and, believe it or not, insurance premiums they said they had continued to debit against the account whilst the claim was processed.
It took 5 years but they finally wrote off a claimed debt of ?7.5k and paid all my expenses for the letters written, phone calls made plus a small "?token" as a "matter of good will".
Take no prisoners or sh!t from them and they will cave in.
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All the banks have signed up to a code of conduct that sets time scales for dealing with transfers of accounts to another bank. They also all have codes of practice, including details of compensation payable if they break them. These codes form part of your contract with the bank. Write to them with details of your complaint, ask for a copy of their code of practice and tell them you want compo. You'll be amazed how fast they will then move to do as you ask.
When I retired I activated the insurance policy with MBNA that covered exactly the circumstances I found myself in. The policy duly paid out but MBNA still claimed I owed them a vast amount of "interest, fees and, believe it or not, insurance premiums they said they had continued to debit against the account whilst the claim was processed.
It took 5 years but they finally wrote off a claimed debt of ?7.5k and paid all my expenses for the letters written, phone calls made plus a small "?token" as a "matter of good will".
Take no prisoners or sh!t from them and they will cave in.
No shit will be taken by Mrs. Barman - I can assure you of that! scared2:
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Well I've never seen or heard it before and it made me smile so applause for Ice and a Slice cloud9:
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Well I've never seen or heard it before and it made me smile so applause for Ice and a Slice cloud9:
Why thank you Anise - likewise! 8)
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Well said Snoopy, The kind of advice I dish out myself that is!
But why, oh why, do we the general public have to declare war on virtually every service we use because they take liberties and treat us as fools?
From banks to funeral directors, shops to insurance companies, government departments to florists, everyone seems to see us as prey.
Far from existing as services, competing to make our lives easier, they assume the universal profile of ignoring every rule in the book and rooking us for as much as we have, some will even push us into debt to steal our money, and no one does anything about it.
Oh sure, there are laws made to cover us and consumer associations abound from every corner of the country to fight our corners but who drags out the heavy artillery every time a company duffs you for 50p or forces you to rack up premium line complaints.
We all know them, the inept numpties or brain dead spottys that can't add up or perform a simple task and we think of them as too stupid to live. Think about it. Would they be employable assets it they were that dumb? Of course not! They would be booted out on their third complaint. Make no mistake, they are toeing the company line!
So It becomes obvious that the irritating, obnoxious, profoundly idiotic staff we have to deal with invariable reside at the end of a premium complaints or service termination line put there deliberately to give us the run-around until we can't afford to talk any more or collapse in exhaustion defeated. Nobody can win an argument with an idiot so that's why they are there.
If any of us denied the law, committed the frauds and extortions, thefts and deceptions, lies and bullshit on others as they do to us, we would be banged up as criminals and rightly so. Every time someone snaps and involves the professions who coldly tell them they are breaking the law, they simply say "Sorry, our staff didn't know about that law" and they get away with it time and again. Even the supermarkets do it with false labeling and flogging stuff past its sell-by. Consumer protection is now an industry in it's own right, and yet there is no need for it, the law covers just about all of it. The problem is that they just ignore it and hope we are too dumb to know about it or too timid to complain. Can you imagine the amount of undeclared income - say BT - would have if it routinely overcharged each of their customers 50p in every bill?
The present government has passed 26,500 or so laws in the last 10 years and it seems nobody can be bothered to abide by any of them, except the public who constantly seem to end up in trouble over plastic swords, or their tax disks in the wrong place in the windscreen or shouting abuse at idiots on the phone that offer double glazing at bedtime.
Are the laws only intended to apply to us? Are we regarded as so stupid that anybody feels it is a foregone conclusion that we will be robbed, the only question is by how much? Why are we obliged to be as learned as solicitors, exercise infinite patience and wisdom and be determined and courageous adventurers just to buy a pint of milk?
We have to be aggressive and knowledgeable and not a little shrewd and intuitive in all of our dealings with everyone day after day. BT makes a fortune from people listening to 'Greensleeves' and occupy themselves in writing complaints and threats on an everyday basis just to avoid being robbed.
It is little wonder everyone is so bloody grumpy.
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No shit will be taken by Mrs. Barman - I can assure you of that! scared2:
I know, I dared to suggest that the bread on my ham sandwich was a little curled last week scared2:
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No shit will be taken by Mrs. Barman - I can assure you of that! scared2:
I know, I dared to suggest that the bread on my ham sandwich was a little curled last week scared2:
And you?re still alive? eeek:
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No shit will be taken by Mrs. Barman - I can assure you of that! scared2:
I know, I dared to suggest that the bread on my ham sandwich was a little curled last week scared2:
And you?re still alive? eeek:
Yes but he is walking in a strange manner ~ but then I suppose one would with a curled ham sandwich up their a***.
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No shit will be taken by Mrs. Barman - I can assure you of that! scared2:
I know, I dared to suggest that the bread on my ham sandwich was a little curled last week scared2:
And you?re still alive? eeek:
Yes but he is walking in a strange manner ~ but then I suppose one would with a curled ham sandwich up their a***.
point:
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He's lucky it was his arse. I'd have rammed it up a significantly smaller hole. eveilgrin:
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He's lucky it was his arse. I'd have rammed it up a significantly smaller hole. eveilgrin:
That doesn't narrow it down much.