December again

See my other 1 December post for the lavishly illustrated annual ramblings

I’ve been having fun with the bank again.  When I tried to register my credit card for on board expenses on the forthcoming cruise, the bank suspected fraud, and blocked it.  It took 25 minutes to get the fraud desk to answer my call, but the helpful woman at the Indian call centre said she’d unblocked the card.  My next two attempted transactions were refused.  So it was back on the dog to customer service, and another 25-minute wait.  That advisor was unable to resolve the issue, so she put me on hold for the fraud desk, and that took another half hour.  In times past, I’d have gone to the branch and camped there till they sorted it.  Our nearest branch is now in creepy Crawley, 45 minutes’ drive away.  I sat down and composed a praise sandwich e-mail to the CEO of the bank: 1. day-to-day service now flawless, 2.  the loooooong wait on the phone: is this normal? and 3. appreciation for the courtesy of all the advisors I spoke to.  Next day I’d an apologetic call from the top-level complaints office: evidently they’re having trouble filling call centre vacancies, and would £75 make me feel better about things?  Bloody right it would, but more importantly, I have since made a successful purchase with the card.

It’s a bit worrying that one has to take the top-level complaints route to get things sorted: I’d to do so to get some action from Benenden back in the summer.  But at least my polite-assertive drafting is getting a bit of practice.

My elderly iPhone is showing its years: the screen is parting company with the body.  I’ve treated myself to a slightly more recent model, and spent hours yesterday transferring the contents from the old to the new - or at least watching while the miracles of technology silently did the job (at the second attempt).  It then took an age to discover how to bring up the telephone keypad!  Telephony seems to be a rather secondary function these days.  

Talking of ancient technology, Martyn’s car has been at the garage for an oil change and MoT, and as is common, said garage came up with a long list of other things wot wanted doing.  It took fully three quarters of an hour to drive to the garage, which is three miles away, so we missed the slot in the MoT inspector’s diary.  We’re hoping that they’ll have managed to slot it in later in the day, but will find out later this morning when we go and get it after its overnight stay.  We shall not start out in the rush hour this time.  [Later: MoT not done, but at least the new appointment, next Tuesday, is for late afternoon.]