On the first day of a month, I usually pay a few bills and swap money between accounts. Yesterday was no exception. When I went to withdraw some cash from a hole-in-the-wall, I got a blunt message telling me that the card company had declined my request. Here’s the story of why.
I need to go back a while here. My bank is Santander, although I original joined Abbey National which subsequently moved through Abbey before adopting the name of its parent Spanish bank. I used to praise Abbey National. They took me on during a tricky financial part of my life when other banks wouldn’t entertain me. I developed a sense of brand loyalty because they’d done good by me. In the past few years, probably since Santander took control, I think that the bank has worsened. I no longer have the same loyalty and I dread the occasions when I actually have to contact them.
Prior to yesterday, my most recent dispute with the bank was over charges. I have a few regular card payments that are initiated by US companies. Mostly for web hosting. This very site you are on now is hosted on my VPS at Linode. The physical machine is in London but since Linode are a US company I’m billed in dollars. Santander charge me a small fee for the currency conversion and I’m reluctantly acceptant of that. I don’t like it but I have to lump it. In the past 12 months however, there’s another little charge started to appear. An “Overseas transaction fee”, a total of £1.25 for each transaction. I looked on my terms and conditions and it states that the fee is applicable “if the transaction was at point of sale”
I’m in the UK, my VPS is in the UK and Linode regularly charge my debit card on the first of every month. Linode are a US company that charge me in dollars, so Santander apply the £1.25 fee. I asked Santander to explain what “at point of sale” meant. They replied that because Linode are not a UK company, they apply the charge. Still not happy, I asked them to provide examples of when a transaction was “at point of sale” and when it wasn’t. The reply was “We apply the charge because it’s a foreign transaction.” Honestly. They just ignored my example request completely and answered a question I hadn’t asked. I gave in, realising that dealing with such ineptitude would only result in my stress levels going through the roof and was it really worth it for £1.25.
So back to yesterday and my card being declined. I rang Santander and spoke to a lovely lady called Mary. She checked my account, told me there wasn’t a problem but spotted that there was a block on my card. So she eventually put me through to Card Services where I had to speak to Marianne. She was a different kettle of fish and was obviously just a call centre operative with the customer service abilities of a monosyllabic moron. She made me jump through about 8 security checks before she’d even deal with my issue. DOB, Post Code, previous addresses, recent transactions, card security number. It was relentless. After about ten minutes we got down to the matter in hand. She asked me to confirm some recent transactions. A petrol purchase, a groceries purchase and my Linode transaction. I confirmed that they were all correct and asked why my card had been blocked. Asonishingly, she said it was the Linode transaction that had triggered a security alert on “the system“.
I nearly fainted with anger. The “system” had flagged up a transaction that occurs every month on the same date and has done so for nearly two years. It was also a transaction that I’d communicated with the bank over a number of times. So I asked why. “It’s just the system” was Marianne’s response. So she got both barrels. It wasn’t her fault and her unsympathetic responses must be the result of a constant barrage of people moaning. Nevertheless I just had to shout at somebody. I could actually feel the blood whooshing through my veins I was that mad. I asked Marianne how I could stop this happening again and she said that it wouldn’t. I’m not confident.
I spent last night wondering how I could manage a virtually bank-free life. I’d just have one account for people to pay me money and I’d withdraw everything on the date it hit my account. I’d pay everything in cash and fuck the lot of them. Probably impractical but in any case, my already at an all-time low opinion of the banking system just went even lower.
Come the revolution…
