Sunday, 28 April 2013

Thursday 4th April 2013



Up bright eyed (or shall we say sleepy eyed) and bushy tailed ready for the challenge ahead.  Paul and I discussed what we need and plan of action.  So I was on the phone to my bank,  the first call I made the man in the call centre advised that I would have to write a letter whilst I was in Spain, post it together with a cheque to pay for the fee.  This would then be received by a central processing department that would take upto 5 days and then it would be posted to a UK address!  Of which was absolutely no good to me, bearing in mind the time constraints.  Well I wasn't happy with that, so decided to go through and call a different number, which I then got through to the right department (Status Enquiries) after speaking to only one person - that's good I thought somebody who was trying to help, instead of reading the standard script!.  Well it started off good, but they couldn't help me either, he did make a suggestion of how we could cut down the time by sending the letter by courier, however he said that any request would have to come from the landlord direct, then a letter of authority and expressing the urgency, if I called a few days after sending via courier they might be able to fax.  Well it was better than nothing - so I got some courier prices.
I know there are security issues and data protection but there surely must be another way.  We can't all be pigeon holed - what ever happened to personal customer service, not everybodies circumstances are the same.
Well you've guessed it, I wasn't going to be pigeoned holed.  So I called my other bank, and asked to be put through to the branch where I opened the Account.  And asked for the Branch Manager - Yeh brave I know.  Anyway I got through to him!  Cutting a long story short I was able to send him and email with some security info so he knew it was coming from me.  But the man had said he was busy and sounded it, so I didn't know even if he would help me.
I tried the same thing going back and calling the bank I spoke to earlier - that was harder to get to the Manager - but I insisted, politely of course, and left a message with the Assistant.  Well she read my Account and noticed I had called centrally, so she quoted me the standard book proceedure.  Well at least I tried.
We must havve spent almost five 1/2 hours trying to sort this out, kids were fractious as would couldn't let them out to play, without a grown up and even though only one of us was on the phone we needed to refer to each other during calls.
Tired and a little dejected we waited to se what the next day would bring.  Maybe sleeping on it would give us some other ideas!

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