it gives you a warm spot in your heart for bank robbers..

Frustration reigns! Some bloody sod has stolen my bankcard number and with it successfully emptied my checking account. I have been in communication with the bank via the online banking site as I think the more matters are in writing, the better shot you have at not having to ram your head into a brick wall and have your brains splatter and run down into the sewers. In spite of my saying, “Not mine. Not mine. Close the account.” They only managed to do so AFTER it was empty! Now when I call them to say, “You must send me new card straight away, use the Fed Ex please as I have no other source of cash down here.”

The bank person says, “Oh we can’t send that to you because there is no money in your account to cover the fifty dollar fee.”

‘There is no money in my account because YOU let someone empty it!” I moaned to no avail. Like talking to a brick, a brick with a very thick American-southern accent. Now I must deposit MORE money into my account that NOW is supposedly closed to the old number in order to facilitate the sending of a new card. Arghhhhh.

It continues as she says, “And where shall I send the papers?”
“Papers? What papers? The chap I emailed at the bank said all you needed was verbal confirmation to send the card, and start the dispute procedure TO GET MY MONEY BACK. Along with the bank fees you have charged me when you GAVE them more money on an overcharge.”

“Oh no Mam’ you have to fill out the papers and get them to us in ten days or you forfeit the money as we cannot dispute,” she says this like she is rattling it off a card.

“Are you mental? It takes two weeks for anything to get here and three weeks for it to get out!”

“We will be glad to fax it to you,” she says with a perky lilt.

“Oh sure let me just go down to me office where I have only one of the two internet connections in the Oudayas and pull a fax machine connected to what out of the air.” Patience is running a bit thin at this point. We can tell because the brogue gets thicker. “FAX machines are a bit thin on the ground here,” I say very slowly.

We left it that I will CALL BACK, because that is just so easy, when I have transferred money into the account at which time they will send the bloody card. Meanwhile I spent thirty minute this afternoon being led from one teleboutique to another by some lovely men who were being most helpful until I found a hole in the wall with the fax literally sitting over his head. This should be fun!