Bureaucracy
I thought things were going smoothly at last.
My quest to change banks is almost over. I have notified everyone of any importance about the new account so all my direct debits and the like should work. I reckon there are only three steps left.
- Make sure my pensions and allowances go into the right account.
- Remember to change the default card on any site [such as groceries] that holds my old card number.
- When everything is running smoothly then transfer the last of the cash and close off the accounts.
I was wrong. Of course.
Yesterday my State Pension duly arrived in the new account but the Allowance went into the old one. Bugger! I spent an age on their website trying to find where to change my banking details. In the end, out of frustration I rang Social Welfare. I got on to a very nice helpful chap who said he would walk me through the process. We went through the pages until we came to a button – “Change Details”. Click that, says he and you’ll be grand. I clicked it and told him it only allowed me to change my address with no mention of banks. This puzzled him. He found the same thing and I could hear him scratching his head. He perked up and gave me a number to call and told me they would make the change for me.
I rang the number. I told a rather surly woman my problem and could she please change the bank details. No. She wouldn’t. She needed proof that it was my account. She wants to see a letter on headed notepaper with my name, address and IBAN number on it. I pointed out that she only had to look at my pension details which she surely had access to, both being Social Welfare. It doesn’t matter, says she, I still need the letter. Apparently [and I quote] “we have different rules to them”. Fuck!
So now I have a problem. How do I get that letter? I can’t phone the bank as that just lands me in an automated system that certainly does not include the option I want. I can’t email my branch [well, I could but they have never responded to any of my mails]. The only option I can think of is to actually go to the bank in person and hope I can persuade them to give me a letter which will be difficult as they seem to have a staff of two – a cashier and a bloke who is only interested in big lucrative accounts.
Bureaucracy will be the death of me yet.
Now there must be a way to be the death of bureaucracy – perhaps overload them with forms/paper they must respond to?
The already have that trick cornered for themselves. One way of fighting back is to insist on giving answers they aren’t expecting and where there is no tick-box on their computer screens. That confuses the hell out of them.
Here in my part of the UK I moved here from Spain 3 years ago and I just went to a local bank where they did all the stuff you mention. No personal involvement at all. Sad to find you have problems. I dare say that if you close your account the system will track you down. Then you can put them straight.
Neither the old nor the new are much help [though they claim to smooth the process]. In practice everything is fine and I am now happily using the new bank. The only problem is the last Jobsworth. I either sort that or I lose my allowance as they would happily carry on paying it into a black hole. That would hurt big time…
Contact your TD. They do feck all else, so you might as well send the whole story to one of them.
The guy with a painted egg for a face wouldn’t be much help but the fellow in Skobieville would probably sort it.
I had actually considered setting aside my contempt for the breed and approaching one of them. Egg-head would be at the bottom of the list. There was some hope for him when he was Independent but lost any shred of respectability when he joined FF.
“Security”!
They guard your personal and financial information so closely that even you can’t make changes to it.