At my leaving do from Eagle Star Insurance in 1981 one of my colleagues wished me luck in my new vacation. I'm sure it was a slip of the tongue.
Priesthood is one of the few occupations still seen as vocational. Notwithstanding the impact of Common Tenure, which leaves clergy to be treated, and feeling, more like the salaried than the stipended, most of us do the job because of a sense of calling and feel that the money we get each month, rather than payment for services rendered, is to save us from the necessity of earning our livings.
We may discuss that some other time.
I've wondered afresh recently, especially in the light of the discussion about salaries for CEOs, if there might be such a thing as a vocational banker.
Who else does this? Some teachers, medics and charity sector professionals maybe but the list doesn't extend easily.
By vocational I mean doing the job by hook or by crook regardless of payment.
The argument about bankers' salaries seems to be that no-one would move sideways to help RBS and in the process take a huge salary cut, therefore the bank needs to offer a market rate. Having done that, albeit with a slashed bonus scheme, Stephen Hester has now been pressured into waiving his right to the bonus negotiated.
How about if there were a group of senior financiers who would say this:
We care about markets, wealth creation and monetary security. It has been our lives' work to study it and manage it. We now pledge ourselves to help ailing financial institutions (even if they are countries) for the rest of our working lives at no more remuneration than that which saves us having to work for our living elsewhere.
Go on. I dare one of you to go first. Bankpriests. We need you.
Showing posts with label Banking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Banking. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A Tale of Abject Stupidity
Abject is normally reserved as a descriptor of poverty. Stick with me. I know my regular reader appreciates the occasional confessional nature of this blog so hang around. I have tunnelled under my usual low standards.
My friends (I don't know what else to call them) at Lloyds Bank sent me two new pieces of plastic to replace the ones in my wallet fast reaching their call security date. A green one and a grey one.
I only ever use two pieces of plastic - a green one (Mastercard) and a grey one (debit card). I removed the old ones from my wallet and cut them neatly into four as the new ones bore a sticker saying they could be used immediately.
I was peeling off the stickers and placing the new cards in my wallet when I noticed some new writing on the grey one. A shiver wandered very very slowly down my spine, through my groin and out of my pocket.
The second card was a replacement for the airmiles duo credit card which my friends decided to send me a few years ago for no reason and I never use.
I examined the four pieces of my debit card in the bin. It doesn't run out until the end of next year. Doesn't? Didn't, it has now.
I had cut up my valid debit card and had no replacement. This is premiership stupidity. Stupidity max with extra fries.
As I contemplated having to PHONE THE BANK the shiver re-entered my pocket and walked back up my spine digging its claws in.
I have a new debit card coming. It will take a few days. That, staff colleagues, is why it is not my round today or tomorrow. And yes, the lovely bank account handler did suggest I upgraded my platinum account to a more expensive one during the conversation.
I cut up the wrong card. The shame.
Thank you. I feel better now. Usual fee?
I cut up the wrong card.
Doh.
Abject doh.
My friends (I don't know what else to call them) at Lloyds Bank sent me two new pieces of plastic to replace the ones in my wallet fast reaching their call security date. A green one and a grey one.
I only ever use two pieces of plastic - a green one (Mastercard) and a grey one (debit card). I removed the old ones from my wallet and cut them neatly into four as the new ones bore a sticker saying they could be used immediately.
I was peeling off the stickers and placing the new cards in my wallet when I noticed some new writing on the grey one. A shiver wandered very very slowly down my spine, through my groin and out of my pocket.
The second card was a replacement for the airmiles duo credit card which my friends decided to send me a few years ago for no reason and I never use.
I examined the four pieces of my debit card in the bin. It doesn't run out until the end of next year. Doesn't? Didn't, it has now.
I had cut up my valid debit card and had no replacement. This is premiership stupidity. Stupidity max with extra fries.
As I contemplated having to PHONE THE BANK the shiver re-entered my pocket and walked back up my spine digging its claws in.
I have a new debit card coming. It will take a few days. That, staff colleagues, is why it is not my round today or tomorrow. And yes, the lovely bank account handler did suggest I upgraded my platinum account to a more expensive one during the conversation.
I cut up the wrong card. The shame.
Thank you. I feel better now. Usual fee?
I cut up the wrong card.
Doh.
Abject doh.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Banking Blues
Pull up a chair. Grab yourself a glass of something refreshing. I am going to tell you a tale. A saga more like. I'd call it a fable but I'm blowed if I know what the moral is yet except to say some progress is, and will always be, backwards.
It begins, surprisingly, with my thinking ahead and planning. I know, I know. I'll try to stop.
Last year, whilst on holiday, my bank stopped my credit and debit cards after the first time I tried to use them in Malta. When I arrived home there was a voice mail on my home phone, from the bank, asking if I had been trying to use my cards overseas. Due to the 'extraordinary activity' they had put a stop on my cards 'for safety's sake.' Of course, being in Malta trying to use my cards made access to my home voicemail a little difficult. It is the sort of thing I go on holiday to get away from.
So I looked at my internet banking site to find out if there was a simple way to tell my bank about a forthcoming trip abroad. There was not, apart from phoning, so I phoned and managed to get through the various number-entering activities that put me through to a fine young man called Mohammed.
I explained what I wanted and he told me that he'd note it but that he could not promise that my cards would not be stopped again. He gave me two numbers to call in case it did happen again. He started to ask about other things but, dragging him back to my point and my reason for calling, I got him to note my mobile number so they could, at least, call me on a phone I might have with me if they needed to. My dictation took two goes but we got there in the end.
Then he asked if I knew that my instant saver account no longer gave me more than 0.01% interest and did I want to upgrade it? You bet I did. I wondered why nobody had told me about this. I was told it was my job to check my savings.
I was transferred to someone else who went through some security questions and then told me about the possible upgrades. When I expressed interest she said one of her colleagues would phone me back in ten minutes to make the arrangements.
The phone did indeed ring ten minutes later and, resisting the overwhelming desire to ask the caller to go through some security questions of my choosing, I went through some security questions of theirs. I then took out an ISA and a new savings account. I asked what would happen to the obsolete account with no interest and no money in it and was told it could only be cancelled in writing or by calling in to my branch. If I do nothing it will simply sit there and smirk, like my old, uncancelled credit cards.
I refused an upgrade to my account which would have cost me more per month and given me several services I didn't need, such as a fourth lot of mobile phone cover and a third of emergency breakdown assistance. I have never lost a phone and avoid it being stolen by always using an uncool one. If I have a breakdown I take the cork out of my assistance.
Towards the end of the conversation, and I have to say I enjoyed the irony of this, the bank employee asked if I was planning to go on holiday this year and if there were any travel services they could offer me.
It begins, surprisingly, with my thinking ahead and planning. I know, I know. I'll try to stop.
Last year, whilst on holiday, my bank stopped my credit and debit cards after the first time I tried to use them in Malta. When I arrived home there was a voice mail on my home phone, from the bank, asking if I had been trying to use my cards overseas. Due to the 'extraordinary activity' they had put a stop on my cards 'for safety's sake.' Of course, being in Malta trying to use my cards made access to my home voicemail a little difficult. It is the sort of thing I go on holiday to get away from.
So I looked at my internet banking site to find out if there was a simple way to tell my bank about a forthcoming trip abroad. There was not, apart from phoning, so I phoned and managed to get through the various number-entering activities that put me through to a fine young man called Mohammed.
I explained what I wanted and he told me that he'd note it but that he could not promise that my cards would not be stopped again. He gave me two numbers to call in case it did happen again. He started to ask about other things but, dragging him back to my point and my reason for calling, I got him to note my mobile number so they could, at least, call me on a phone I might have with me if they needed to. My dictation took two goes but we got there in the end.
Then he asked if I knew that my instant saver account no longer gave me more than 0.01% interest and did I want to upgrade it? You bet I did. I wondered why nobody had told me about this. I was told it was my job to check my savings.
I was transferred to someone else who went through some security questions and then told me about the possible upgrades. When I expressed interest she said one of her colleagues would phone me back in ten minutes to make the arrangements.
The phone did indeed ring ten minutes later and, resisting the overwhelming desire to ask the caller to go through some security questions of my choosing, I went through some security questions of theirs. I then took out an ISA and a new savings account. I asked what would happen to the obsolete account with no interest and no money in it and was told it could only be cancelled in writing or by calling in to my branch. If I do nothing it will simply sit there and smirk, like my old, uncancelled credit cards.
I refused an upgrade to my account which would have cost me more per month and given me several services I didn't need, such as a fourth lot of mobile phone cover and a third of emergency breakdown assistance. I have never lost a phone and avoid it being stolen by always using an uncool one. If I have a breakdown I take the cork out of my assistance.
Towards the end of the conversation, and I have to say I enjoyed the irony of this, the bank employee asked if I was planning to go on holiday this year and if there were any travel services they could offer me.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Personal Banking
I wanted to increase my overdraft between now and the end of August to cover the additional costs of putting our house in a state to sell and various other costs associated with the move. On August 18th a couple of relocation grants will arrive to remove the overdraft. Remove. It will exterminate it. We are not talking big bucks here.
I negotiated the first automated menu at Lloyds TSB call centre and, after a short pause, got through to an operative.
She asked me if I had a temporary secret number. Which I did. I thought I had been so clever keeping this since the last time I had phoned Lloyds TSB in December 2005 and I proudly read it to her.
'Unfortunately Mr Tilley that hasn't worked,' she said disappointedly. 'Could you confirm it to me again.' I did and it still didn't work so she had to transfer me to a new operative who registered me for a new secret number by asking me my mother's inside leg measurement and my date of birth. She then transferred me to a machine into which I inputted my new number myself using the phone key pad and saying 'yes' when asked by a machine to confirm it was correct and repeating 'yes' because the machine told me I didn't say it loud enough and then back to the registry woman who said it had gone through and she transferred me back not to the original woman but to another woman who asked me where I lived (second time), my date of birth (second time) and the second and fourth digits of my new secret number.
'Can you be overheard or overlooked Mr Tilley?'
'No.'
'It sounds like you're in an office.'
'I am. But I am alone. '
'Is someone typing?'
'Yes.' (A guy's gotta blog or he'll go mad)
Anyway she was in a position to transfer me to a personal banker having first ascertained that there wasn't any other service I wanted. I listened in while she briefed this personal banker and then he asked me all the questions she had just given him the answer to. He also gave me the challenge of switching quickly from understanding Glaswegian English to Indian English whilst recalling my address, home phone number, mother's bra size and date of birth.
Friend Richard says the trick is never to answer in the same way twice even if the answer is always affirmative. Try this:
It is.
Yes.
I am.
Indeed.
Quite
Aye.
Why aye.
Arr.
Absolutely.
Of course.
I agree.
It's great fun.
So he listens having first checked he has understood my request and then says it has been turned down. I try to stay calm and simply exude frustration rather than anger and he offers to check with his supervisor before I ask anything. There is a glorious wait with no hold music although no other noise either so you have no idea if you've been cut off, forgotten or hurled into call-centre limbo from which there is no escape unless you have a phone stapled to your ear and a long lead in case you want a pooh.
Apparently I have a credit card bill (it's within the limit) and a loan (paid regularly on time) and this is bad although having a quarter of a million pound house for sale with a mortgage of less than half that and a thumping big relocation grant cheque on the way is not good to balance.
Then he comes back and says yes. So there is a God after all. I'd vanished him over the last ten minutes. He (TSB Indian, not God) tells me he has to read out a long list of stuff but if I am happy he will summarise the stuff and write to me with the rest so I'm going to get two letters on Monday (probably in separate envelopes) one setting out the terms and conditions of Lloyds TSB's internet banking alleged service and the other the terms and conditions of my new overdraft limit.
He asks if there is anything else I need and I resist asking if there is more he would like to know about my mother, a fine upstanding Christian woman with an excellent maiden name of no you don't catch me out like that, but gone a bit doolally in the last few decades. So I say no and he says have a nice evening and I feel a sense of achievement that you shouldn't really have to feel simply asking for a four week overdraft extension. And getting it.
Beer time.
I negotiated the first automated menu at Lloyds TSB call centre and, after a short pause, got through to an operative.
She asked me if I had a temporary secret number. Which I did. I thought I had been so clever keeping this since the last time I had phoned Lloyds TSB in December 2005 and I proudly read it to her.
'Unfortunately Mr Tilley that hasn't worked,' she said disappointedly. 'Could you confirm it to me again.' I did and it still didn't work so she had to transfer me to a new operative who registered me for a new secret number by asking me my mother's inside leg measurement and my date of birth. She then transferred me to a machine into which I inputted my new number myself using the phone key pad and saying 'yes' when asked by a machine to confirm it was correct and repeating 'yes' because the machine told me I didn't say it loud enough and then back to the registry woman who said it had gone through and she transferred me back not to the original woman but to another woman who asked me where I lived (second time), my date of birth (second time) and the second and fourth digits of my new secret number.
'Can you be overheard or overlooked Mr Tilley?'
'No.'
'It sounds like you're in an office.'
'I am. But I am alone. '
'Is someone typing?'
'Yes.' (A guy's gotta blog or he'll go mad)
Anyway she was in a position to transfer me to a personal banker having first ascertained that there wasn't any other service I wanted. I listened in while she briefed this personal banker and then he asked me all the questions she had just given him the answer to. He also gave me the challenge of switching quickly from understanding Glaswegian English to Indian English whilst recalling my address, home phone number, mother's bra size and date of birth.
Friend Richard says the trick is never to answer in the same way twice even if the answer is always affirmative. Try this:
It is.
Yes.
I am.
Indeed.
Quite
Aye.
Why aye.
Arr.
Absolutely.
Of course.
I agree.
It's great fun.
So he listens having first checked he has understood my request and then says it has been turned down. I try to stay calm and simply exude frustration rather than anger and he offers to check with his supervisor before I ask anything. There is a glorious wait with no hold music although no other noise either so you have no idea if you've been cut off, forgotten or hurled into call-centre limbo from which there is no escape unless you have a phone stapled to your ear and a long lead in case you want a pooh.
Apparently I have a credit card bill (it's within the limit) and a loan (paid regularly on time) and this is bad although having a quarter of a million pound house for sale with a mortgage of less than half that and a thumping big relocation grant cheque on the way is not good to balance.
Then he comes back and says yes. So there is a God after all. I'd vanished him over the last ten minutes. He (TSB Indian, not God) tells me he has to read out a long list of stuff but if I am happy he will summarise the stuff and write to me with the rest so I'm going to get two letters on Monday (probably in separate envelopes) one setting out the terms and conditions of Lloyds TSB's internet banking alleged service and the other the terms and conditions of my new overdraft limit.
He asks if there is anything else I need and I resist asking if there is more he would like to know about my mother, a fine upstanding Christian woman with an excellent maiden name of no you don't catch me out like that, but gone a bit doolally in the last few decades. So I say no and he says have a nice evening and I feel a sense of achievement that you shouldn't really have to feel simply asking for a four week overdraft extension. And getting it.
Beer time.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Handy Hint 476
Next time your bank telephones you, try this:
Hello, thanks for calling. Before I proceed with this call I'd like to ask you some security questions to check you are who you say you are. What is the address and telehone number of your branch in (place where you live)?
What colour is the front door?
What shop is immediately to the left?
Go on. Strike a mighty blow for local banking.
Hello, thanks for calling. Before I proceed with this call I'd like to ask you some security questions to check you are who you say you are. What is the address and telehone number of your branch in (place where you live)?
What colour is the front door?
What shop is immediately to the left?
Go on. Strike a mighty blow for local banking.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Lloyds Bank Again
I could never change banks. This one is far too entertaining.
I didn't get round to replying to them about their latest 'rewards' offer, which I received even though I have been removed from the unsolicited mailing list for ever.
Good job because I would like to quote to you from a letter I received today. Hold in your mind that Lloyds Bank are my bank, my only bank, and this letter is from Lloyds Bank.
'This is to let you know that as you have made the final payment on your personal loan, we have closed your loan account.
'As you have repaid your loan earlier than the expected end date, you may be entitled to a refund of your Loan Protection insurance premium. If this is the case, Lloyds TSB Insurance will contact you separately.
'We will cancel your direct debit arrangement straightaway. If you have been making your repayments by standing order, you need to contact your bank immediately to make sure they cancel the agreement.'
As Spike Milligan once said, 'Never let the left hand know what the right middle hand is doing.'
I didn't get round to replying to them about their latest 'rewards' offer, which I received even though I have been removed from the unsolicited mailing list for ever.
Good job because I would like to quote to you from a letter I received today. Hold in your mind that Lloyds Bank are my bank, my only bank, and this letter is from Lloyds Bank.
'This is to let you know that as you have made the final payment on your personal loan, we have closed your loan account.
'As you have repaid your loan earlier than the expected end date, you may be entitled to a refund of your Loan Protection insurance premium. If this is the case, Lloyds TSB Insurance will contact you separately.
'We will cancel your direct debit arrangement straightaway. If you have been making your repayments by standing order, you need to contact your bank immediately to make sure they cancel the agreement.'
As Spike Milligan once said, 'Never let the left hand know what the right middle hand is doing.'
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