Filed under: Comment
So my wife has a savings account with the bank ING.
To be honest, we quite like them. Well, quite like them for a bank.
They are easy to deal with … they actually pay us some interest and they send out information on time.
So imagine our surprise when we got an email from them saying that because Jill hadn’t transacted on the account for the past 2 years, they would close it down and give the cash [which was quite a sizable amount] to the Government if they didn’t hear from her immediately.
OK … so I can sort of understand they want to check the person is still alive, but it was all a bit aggressive for my liking.
But that was only the start of the weird.
You see Jill rang ING and confirmed that yes, she was still breathing … only to told by the lady on the other end of the phone, that wasn’t enough and she had to actually transact on her account.
When Jill pointed out she couldn’t do it immediately because her day-to-day funds weren’t in Australia any more, the bank person told her not to worry because she could do it on her behalf.
And do you know what she did?
She transferred 1 cent between her ING account and her other Australian bank.
ONE CENT.
ONE TIDDLY CENT.
ONE TIDDLY CENT AND EVERYTHING WAS OK.
But it was actually much more than one cent wasn’t it.
The initial email … the phone call … the movement of money between accounts … all that adds up to way more than just one teeny-weeny Australian cent both in respects of time, money and energy being wasted.
I appreciate ING were just following the rules, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense – at least the ‘moving money’ bit.
I’m almost entirely positive the person/people who added the ‘transactional element’ to the legislation did it under the guise of ‘ensuring the account owner can be easily identified’.
Except that if the account hasn’t been used for 2 years, it’s hardly a hotbed of fraudulent activity is it?!!!
I know I’m going off on a tangent-ridden rant, but all this proves to me is that common sense isn’t that common and the people who make the financial rules are as questionable as the banks who do all they can to work around them.
Though naturally, they never try and find loop holes when it involves creating customer red-tape do they.
Thank god it’s Friday, I need a lie down.
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First world problems.
Comment by Duncan January 11, 2013 @ 6:35 amhow the fuck can it be a first world problem if youre talking about australia?
Comment by andy@cynic January 11, 2013 @ 6:39 amfunny how banks follow the fucking rules when it lets them fuck with their customers lives.
Comment by andy@cynic January 11, 2013 @ 6:42 amid trust a fucking managing director of some faceless wpp bollocks more than a bank. what the fuck am i talking about, theyre basically the same thing. profit before fucking conscience.
Comment by andy@cynic January 11, 2013 @ 6:45 am“Profit before conscience.”
Did you organise occupy Wall Street?
Comment by DH January 11, 2013 @ 6:53 amAdbusters
Comment by Bazza January 11, 2013 @ 6:56 amAdbusters, definitely.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 8:32 amSlagging off banks is like slagging off the Kardashian’s. It’s so easy, it’s lost any meaning.
Comment by DH January 11, 2013 @ 6:51 amSwap Kardashian for Alex Jones.
Comment by DH January 11, 2013 @ 6:52 amSurely a 1 tögrög note deposited per month would not only suffice but would also give ING the much needed excitement they clearly lack.
Comment by Chris January 11, 2013 @ 6:51 amI’m fairly certain one Australian cent is of similar value.
Comment by Bazza January 11, 2013 @ 6:58 amWe used to call it the ‘Pacific peso’.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 8:33 amNormally you need to provide your bank with incredible amounts of information for any sort of transaction but on this occasion, all that was needed was a phonecall. I know 1 cent is nothing, but it’s not the amount, it’s the inconsistency of the banks internal processes that annoys me.
Comment by Pete January 11, 2013 @ 7:10 amInconsistency is just one of the issues that frustrates banking customers but I’m betting it would be even more frustrating for Jill if ING hadn’t been so helpful in solving this issue for her.
Comment by George January 11, 2013 @ 7:20 amMaybe just a coincidence but a certain parastiic Bank called Barclays contacted me for the first time stating they knew my address was wrong and wanting my latest details in the last week. I game them your address. Is that all right?
Comment by Charles Frith January 11, 2013 @ 8:31 amGo for it Charles, given the shit I’ve had from HSBC with my credit card, what’s another incompetent bank stealing my money?!
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 8:34 amThey get shirty when you seem to buy lots of the same vendor – I’m guessing the Apple store, Birkenstock and Army and Navy store are all likely culprits
Comment by northern January 11, 2013 @ 4:08 pmYou’ll be happy to know that I’m in a Queen t-shirt today Northern. No army/navy insignia’s in sight. Look at me expanding my wardrobe range!!!
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 4:15 pmYou know full well you choice of t-shirt will not fill me with gladness. Surely this week it should be the Smiths
Comment by northern January 11, 2013 @ 4:24 pmAs transparent as a greenhouse.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 4:57 pmYou mean Jill has money in a bank account she doesn’t spend by the end of the month? What sort of weird shit is that?
Comment by Billy Whizz January 11, 2013 @ 9:04 amI find it interesting that unclaimed monies go to the state.
Following on from your post yesterday, could banks not ask people to nominate a charity when opening an account to aviod this situation?
If I was running a charity, I would lobby for this change.
Comment by Lee Hill January 11, 2013 @ 10:23 amSo your wife is a bloated plutocrat? But then, that’s why you married her, right. You should be horsewhipped sir… Horsewhipped.
Comment by adscamgeorge January 11, 2013 @ 11:15 amDisgusted of Tunbridge Wells.
It means I can afford to buy you a beer when I’m in NYC.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 3:14 pmRob, first off happy new year hope this year brings you fulfilment and peace…
Comment by swatidagur (@swatidagur) January 11, 2013 @ 1:38 pmi feel for this post completely, i understand that banks have rules but some of the rules and laws are so moronic that i wonders if people who wrote them down were not doing so locked up in a conference room smoking up…
i wanted to close my account with a bank that i hadn’t operated for 2 years so here’s what happened – go to bank, fill up form for reactivation of account, go to man with computer and he activates account…go fill closing form go to same man with computer to close… please tell me that this procedure was nothing but the boring back fucks getting their jollies out of pissing off some busy (not so much) people like me…
Common sense is very very uncommon…
did say good point and good post
Hello there and HNY to you too.
Banks are utterly mental. You can’t close a bank account you want to … my wife’s bank want to close an account she doesn’t want to … and the Halifax Building Society in the UK, a place where I have had approximately 2.13 in savings for about 35 years, keeps sending me statements even though there hasn’t been a transaction for almost 4 decades.
You’re right, common sense is a myth.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 3:16 pmI sometimes work on a bank affiliated with HSBC, they are developing a new position about being creative with money, no one has mentioned that the only reason their customers need to get ‘creative with money’ is because the mothership and their friends are as trustworthy with money as Rasputin is with your girlfriend.
Comment by northern January 11, 2013 @ 4:13 pmIt’s a bit like stealing someone’s car and then telling them they should cyle to work
How can we get creative with our money when those fuckers let people steal it from us by spending a fortune on:
1. iPhones/iTouch/MacBook Pro from Apple NYC
2. Tickets to France
3. Tickets on the Orient Express
No, that is not a joke, that’s what HSBC allowed to go on my credit card courtesy of the sort of sophisticated thief that you would expect to be named ‘Pink Panther’.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 4:20 pmpot. kettle. fucking black. you know why campbell.
Comment by andy@cynic January 12, 2013 @ 12:16 amI recently had my ANZ credit card details stolen from an online store. The people went on a bit of a hotel spree across the UK. They stopped one evening for an £80 meal at Dominos. Fucking Dominos! Clearly the UK scammers are a lower class of crim to yours, Rob.
Comment by Age January 15, 2013 @ 2:04 amThat really riles me, their fraud squad seems to call me every five minutes, last time they wanted to check on my Typepad payments, the ones that have been going out since around 2004.
Comment by northern January 11, 2013 @ 4:29 pmThen they let the Orient Express go, and tickets to France go. If I was Andy, I’d be saying they should know you never pay for travel
And yes, they are fuckers for getting the money back
In 50 years – when people accidentally stumble on this blog – I’m going to sound like Little Lord Fontenroy when I’m really just a rough bloke from Nottingham.
Mind you, you’re going to sound like a pervert employee who wanted to destroy his previous employer so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.
Comment by Rob January 11, 2013 @ 5:00 pmand your point is what mr little fucking prince?
Comment by andy@cynic January 12, 2013 @ 12:17 amI finally cut up all my credit cards. Just use a bank debit card now… Much harder to hack… And, you no longer charge shit willy nilly. But then again, when my Platinum AmEx was courtesy of Ogilvy and all the other BDA’s I didn’t give a fuck.
Comment by adscamgeorge January 15, 2013 @ 6:50 amCheers/George