i lost it yesterday.

Normally I’m a placid sort of a bloke. it takes a lot to rile me to the point where I start screaming abuse down a phone but yesterday I reached that point.

A few years ago we were forced to switch bank accounts when Ulster Bank decided to cease trading here. We chose Permanent Trustee Savings Bank, aka PTSB as the choice of bank was limited and I had had bad experiences with the other banks. The move wasn’t without problems but eventually everything settled down.

Recently, for reasons best known to Herself, she cancelled her debit card and was sent a new one. I must have been in hospital at the time so I knew nothing about this until the new card arrived. She tried using her card and it didn’t work. It had to be activated. This is where the fun started.

I went into the PTSB website. It gave simple instructions and gave a number to phone. Yesterday I phoned that number.

It started of course with the inevitable messages about how they are recording the call “for training purposes” [yea, right] and then a long tedious thing about rebates or something. Eventually the voice droned into a menu of choices. I selected the number I required and it asked for the account number. This is a long number and before I had a chance to enter it all the recording went back into the menu again. I had to be lightening quick and was ready for it the next time it came up.

Eventually I managed to get through the maze of options and got onto an actual person. Judging by the difficult accent and bad English I was onto a call centre in darkest India. Fuck!

I explained that I just wanted a card activated. He had to speak to the account holder. I gave Herself the phone and she went through the inevitable mother’s maiden name and her date of birth. She gave the phone back to me. The bloke then told me to hold on, and then he promptly returned me to the beginning of the fucking recorded messages and the goddamn menu system again.

Having endured the whole procedure I got onto a different bloke so I had to go through the whole reason for my call and the security crap again. He said no problem and before I could stop him he shoved me back into the shagging message system again.

On the third or forth circuit of this infuriating process I finally lost my placid nature. I hurled abuse at the unfortunate bloke. In no uncertain terms I told him not to send me on the circuit yet again, and to just stop fucking around and activate the fucking card. I think he tried to tell me he couldn’t do that but I gave him little chance to speak. When I do get into that state, the victim has no chance. I am going to have my say and will just continue until I have said it. Having threatened to cancel my account and to go on national radio I demanded to speak to a manager.

I was put on hold with that fucking musak driving me further into insanity. Eventually I got onto another bloke. I let him have it too. He activated the card! Why they couldn’t do this in the beginning is beyond me.

I think I remember a while back an advertisement by the PTSB explaining how they were going to make the bank more friendly and give the personal touch where we could actually phone our local branch and speak to someone local.

They obviously haven’t got around to it yet.

Shower of cunts.