What annoys me more than anything about today is that I specifically told the Royal Bank of Scotland back in March that I was going travelling. Don't block my bank card if you see purchases or cash withdrawals in Central and South American countries, I told them before I headed off to Cuba. Yes, Mr McL____, they told me with a confidence that gave me confidence, we have put a note on your bank account so this definitely will not happen.
Today I went to an ATM in Panama City to withdraw some money, and received a message on the cash machine screen telling me to contact my financial institution. Assuming it was a mistake, I went to another ATM. Please contact your financial institution, the second machine told me as well. I was already spitting by the time a third machine spat my card back at me and advised me to contact my financial institution
The problem I had was that I was in Panama, my financial institution, the Royal Bank of Scotland is in Scotland, and I had about five dollars in my wallet to contact then. My first phone call to got me an engaged tone and swallowed my 25 cents. I was down to 4 dollars and 75 cents and starting to panic. So I called my Dad.
I called my Dad via Skype on the laptop that I bought yesterday in Panama City. The same laptop purchase that I assume caused the RBOS to put a block on my bank account, given I have withdrawn money in Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, USA, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama over the last five months and not had any previous problems with my card being blocked.
I am glad I had the laptop (which I bought because Panamanian electronics are cheap, and because I am sick of spending hours (and dinero) in internet cafes when there is free WIFI everywhere), and that there there was some aforementioned free WIFI in a nearby shopping mall for me to use so I didnt have to eat into my four dollars seventy-five cents. I am also glad my Dad was sitting at home in Scotland on his computer when I skyped him in a panic.
It took one and a half hours to get my bank card unblocked. One hour and 25 minutes of this was listening via Skype to my Dad get increasingly annoyed with several incompetent RBOS call centre monkeys that kept telling him I needed to call them myself, and couldnt seem to understand that I was in a country several thousand miles away with not enough money to call them.
The other five minutes was spent talking to a call centre monkey myself, by my dad holding his landline phone in Scotland to his computer microphone, so I could talk to the monkey by shouting loudly at my laptop in Panana, whilst everyone in the shopping mall I was sitting in looked with bemusement at the rude extranjero with the increasingly angry red face.
Those Scottish
The RBS share price over the last few years trended similarly to my patience with their call-centre staff today.
Footnote: Thanks Dad.
