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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2013 2:39:04 GMT -5
Having had occasion to transact some banking business to-day, I toddled along to the bank, where I was attended to not by the expected polite, subservient, quietly dressed and preferably male employee, but by a snivelling young woman with coloured tattoos on her arms and a wireless under her desk emitting raucously unspeakable noises. I shall worry for a couple of days about the germs I may have picked up. And the thing is, were I to protest at any of that, they would not know what I was talking about. What is the world coming to!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2013 2:55:29 GMT -5
Tattoos have become surprisingly fashionable of late, Sydney, although I should perhaps confess that I do not have any at all! As for music in the bank, and other places, I did once play some Beethoven in a bank, but no one was interested in the music! The Daily Mail - David Beckham shows off his new chest tattoo on the beach... as he boogie boards with Brooklyn, Romeo and CruzAs for germs, it is remarkably easy to pick up various viruses and people, not to mention (other) diseases, and not only in banks! If someone coughs or sneezes behind me at the Proms, for example, I often look back and wonder whether I am going to catch whatever they have got! I don't think that it is possible to avoid the common cold, but the older you get, the more immunity you may build up (having had so many before). Many banks have transformed themselves into financial supermarkets, but beware! All the Abrahamic religions have worried about the social evils of usury - the charging of interest. Both the Bible and the Qur'an have forthright things to say about it, from the prohibitions of Leviticus - "Thou shalt not give him money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase" (Leviticus 25:37) - to the scathing words of the Qur'an - "Those that live on usury shall rise up before God like men whom Satan has demented by his touch." (Qur'an, 2: 275) The most recent manifestation of this age-old concern has been the rise of Sharia-compliant Islamic banking, offering services consistent with Islamic religious belief. Islamic banks are not permitted to invest in alcohol, the arms trade, pornography or gambling, and our Islamic credit card is paid for by a fixed service charge, not by interest. Here's Razi Fakih, from the Islamic wing of HSBC, known as Amanah, and based in Dubai: This recent development, tying religion to the heart of commercial activity, runs counter to what, for most of the twentieth century, had become the received wisdom. Most intellectuals and economists from the French Revolution onwards, including Marx himself, assumed that religion would steadily dwindle as a force in public life. One of the striking facts of the first decade of the twenty-first century has been the return of religion to the centre of the political and economic stage in large parts of the world. The gold Islamic credit card in the link below is part of that growing global phenomenon, one of many attempts to find a new accommodation between those old opponents, God and mammon! The British Museum - Credit card
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 11:11:53 GMT -5
I have noticed adverts for credit cards at train stations, I suppose advertising works ?
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Post by ahinton on Sept 25, 2013 11:31:44 GMT -5
Having had occasion to transact some banking business to-day, I toddled along to the bank, where I was attended to not by the expected polite, subservient, quietly dressed and preferably male employee, but by a snivelling young woman with coloured tattoos on her arms and a wireless under her desk emitting raucously unspeakable noises. I shall worry for a couple of days about the germs I may have picked up. And the thing is, were I to protest at any of that, they would not know what I was talking about. What is the world coming to! What is the principal source of your objection here - the sex of the bank teller, her politeness or otherwise (on which you did not pronounce), the subservience thereof (why should a bank teller be subservient?), her dress code, her tattoos or their particular coulour/s or locations or the noise emitting device beneath her desk? Why would you expect a bank teller to be male, even if only preferably so? Politeness you would expect from bank staff and so would I, along with the requisite ability to accomplish the requested tasks efficiently, but I'd seek no more than that - aftgr all, it's only a banking transaction! If by "snivelling" you mean that the teller was afflicted with a head cold or something similar, would you expect her to have stayed away from work until she'd recovered (and the same for a male teller likewise afflicted)? You ask what the world is coming to. The world of banking has long since come to a greatly reduced need to visit bank branches for the purpose of carrying out transactions. Why could you not have done what you needed to do by telephone or online from the comfort of your own desk without even having to waste time attending the bank? I'm particuarly surprised that someone as technologically savvy as you are would still choose to do this. I cannot now even remember when last I went inside a bank branch! The word "Modern" in your thread topic therefore seems especially inapposite!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 13:31:27 GMT -5
Mr. H. it is precisely because I consider myself "savvy" that I would never use the tele-phone or the "on-line" contraptions. Indeed I refuse to give them my tele-phone number, and have finally trained them to stop impertinently demanding it. All my banking business is done in writing and confirmed with a manager's signature and always will be thank you very much! And even then I had to go back the following week because she gave me a document correctly saying "six months" but the bank subsequently sent a letter saying "three months." Naturally the principal source of my objection was her morbid defluxion. After that came the raucous racket from the general area of her legs. I was able to avert my eyes from the tattoos and bear the cheap scent for a few minutes; but what an experience! I would not wish it on any one. . .
My advice to you is to return to your bank as soon as you can and ask for a balance. You may be surprised!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 13:48:28 GMT -5
My local bank manager is called Catherine, Sydney, and she always asks me out for a date whenever visit her bank. Alas, I always decline her, so I don't even know whether she has any tattoos. I am not even sure how dangerous she is, Jason, but her bank was bailed out during the global financial crisis, so that is probably perilous enough!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2013 2:37:01 GMT -5
fortune favours the brave ?
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Post by ahinton on Sept 26, 2013 4:19:28 GMT -5
Mr. H. it is precisely because I consider myself "savvy" that I would never use the tele-phone or the "on-line" contraptions. Indeed I refuse to give them my tele-phone number, and have finally trained them to stop impertinently demanding it.[quote/] You don't say why this is, though! All my banking business is done in writing and confirmed with a manager's signature and always will be thank you very much! Well, that's up to you, of course - but when, as in my case, the nearest branch of one's bank is more than 125 miles distant, visiting the branch is hardly convenient and as for using the "ordinary" mail I try to avoid that whenever possible, given the parlous state of that "service" where I am; I try to persuade people to make direct transfers to my bank and never to send cheques in the mail, because the latter always involves two lots of mailing and thereby doubles the risk of loss or misappropriation. As it happens, I don't do online banking either; I do it all over the hyphenless telephone. BACS transfers also save vast amounts of time and attract no charges; those from UK usually clear within seconds and those from elsewhere can take up to two business days. And even then I had to go back the following week because she gave me a document correctly saying "six months" but the bank subsequently sent a letter saying "three months." So the teller got it right but her employer subsequently got it wrong; hardly her fault, then. Naturally the principal source of my objection was her morbid defluxion. After that came the raucous racket from the general area of her legs. I was able to avert my eyes from the tattoos and bear the cheap scent for a few minutes; but what an experience! I would not wish it on any one. . . So you are indirectly implying that she should have stayed at home until she'd ridden herself of her head cold rather than brave it and continue to work, then? Yes, you don't have to look at people's tattoos if you don't want to. I'm puzzled about the noise of which you write, though; my bank wouldn;t tolerate that kind of thing. My advice to you is to return to your bank as soon as you can and ask for a balance. You may be surprised! I have done this, though not as a consequence of taking your advice but as something that I intended to do in any case this morning. I did it by hyphenless telephone as usual. I spoke to a woman with a distinct New Zealand accent who was - as indeed are all the bank staff to whom I've ever spoken - very pleasant, polite and efficient, though not, fortunately, subservient. She, too, seemed to have something of a head cold but I don't think it possible to catch it down the wires (and I do not see myself kitching her iksent either). I was not surprised at the balance in my account as it was precisely as I had expected; why did you think that I might be surprised at it? Incidentally, my present and previous bank managers are women although, as I do not visit the bank, I have never actually met them.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2013 5:00:57 GMT -5
. . . I do it all over the hyphenless telephone. . . Just words in the wind. Where is your contract? Nothing to stand on what!
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Post by ahinton on Sept 26, 2013 6:17:35 GMT -5
. . . I do it all over the hyphenless telephone. . . Just words in the wind. Where is your contract? Nothing to stand on what! My contract with my bank is in writing and signed by both parties at the time when I joined it in 1989. The balances show on my statements which, sadly, my bank still send in the ordinary mail because I've not signed up for online banking but, even though these are in writing, they are obviously computer generated, so one could argue that this data might be little more reliable than "words in the wind", although I've never been given any information over the phone by the bank that has not been corroborated in a statement. I doubt that many customers would claim that the service provided by their bank is exemplary, but I would certainly do so. You're quite good at selective omission, you know! On this occasion, you make no comment on why I might be surprised at my bank balance, nor do you appear to take on board the logistical impracticalities of my conducting business with my bank in person.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2013 7:11:40 GMT -5
For the record, I do have issues with online banking, Sydney! The internet is far from secure, ahinton. Good hackers can hack into most systems, and at least in theory, steal my savings. So I do not tend to use online banking facilities, and certainly not without checking everything carefully. The British Museum - Stories of moneyFortunately, I am surrounded by banks in one of the world's great financial centres, so I am rather spoilt for choice of physical banking facilities. I also still use a mutual building society, as I opened an account there as a child, and it is a good backup for domestic transactions. The British Museum - MoneyAs for telephone banking, well, I do a lot of business on the telephone, and increasingly online, so I am not averse to it. I am, however, cautious, because there are so many fraudsters around. It is amazing how many malicious telephone calls and emails I receive these days, already well in excess of 90% of all communications! Debit and credit card fraud is also rife, and I occasionally get given fake banknotes and coins, too. This is why I prefer to go and see my bank manager Catherine face-to-face. According to Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, what the present anxieties and disasters should be teaching us is to ‘keep ourselves from idols’, in the biblical phrase: Even in its original Greek sense, economics, 'the management of the home and the estate', cannot really be considered in isolation. Events get in the way. According to Pericles, the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who knows what is sweet in life and what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come. So, I think, should we, Sydney. As for the present and future of money, let me quote the curator Catherine Eagleton directly from her British Museum blog: [/b] The British Museum - Blog - The present and future of money
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Post by ahinton on Sept 26, 2013 9:23:15 GMT -5
For the record, I do have issues with online banking, Sydney! The internet is far from secure, ahinton. Good hackers can hack into most systems, and at least in theory, steal my savings. So I do not tend to use online banking facilities, and certainly not without checking everything carefully. Well, as I wrote earlier, I do not use online banking myself, but I don't see that this makes any difference since the bank itself does so! Anyone who knows what to do can hack into anyone's bank account whether or not the victim does online or telephone banking; all that's necessary is to have the victim's bank details. I publish mine our our website (otherwise I'd not get paid that way) and everyone who makes payments from bank accounts, whether electronically or by cheque, reveals his/her/their bank details to the recipients. The extent to which such data can be compromised is clear from an experience that I had some years ago, from my recounting of which below will again reveal the efficiency of my bank. I was at a car showroom and had tended my credit card to purchase a part whose cost was around £20. My card purchase attempt was declined - three times in succession. I called my bank then and there and was advised that they had called my landline to let me know that they'd closed down my card because of what they assumed to have been attempted fraudulent use of its details by someone else and, when I asked for the details of this, it became clear that someone had ineed tried to do this and that the bank's alacrity in its action was welcome. I was correctly advised that no message had been left on my landline about this for security reasons. I was also advised that a replacement card had been ordered and that this would be with me within five business days but that I could return to the showroom and make the purchase sooner than that once the new card details had been produced, even though I would not have received the card itself. I had hardly any cash on me at the time so had to leave the part in the showroom. I did as the bank suggested two days later and they gave me the card details over the phone in the showroom after they'd satisfied themselves as to my identity. Again, the card transaction was declined, twice so I called the bank again and was told that someone had done it again and they'd once again closed down the card account and would have to reissue again. Leaving aside the embarrassment that this caused to me, it became clear at that point that the hacker concerned had been able at least to attempt to hack my card account even before I had received a card for it for my use, a fact that demonstates that someone with sufficient determination and knowledge can hack into the systems of banks' card production facilities just as they can hack into card accounts and bank accounts. Now obviously all credit card use is electronic, whether or not cardholders use online banking facilities for their bank accounts, so the only way to avoid that is not to have any cards at all, which is pretty much impossible today.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2013 9:35:46 GMT -5
Security is an issue, is an arms race between the illegal crooks and the legal crooks ( banks ).
Where possible, I go 'face to face' as like to practice sales skills and picking up leads for my part-time website making gig, is good to chat.
When going on holiday I take a mix of cards and cash as remember being in the south of france and having a block put on my credit card for attempting to buy a printer, I rang them up and they said 'well, it looked odd, you never did that before'... bizarre !
... having said all that, my local bakery has that new contactless pay option... I suppose the question is not 'do you use internet banking' but 'enough people do for it to be worth while for the banks to offer it'.
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Post by ahinton on Sept 26, 2013 10:40:34 GMT -5
Security is an issue, is an arms race between the illegal crooks and the legal crooks ( banks ). Where possible, I go 'face to face' as like to practice sales skills and picking up leads for my part-time website making gig, is good to chat. When going on holiday I take a mix of cards and cash as remember being in the south of france and having a block put on my credit card for attempting to buy a printer, I rang them up and they said 'well, it looked odd, you never did that before'... bizarre ! ... having said all that, my local bakery has that new contactless pay option... I suppose the question is not 'do you use internet banking' but 'enough people do for it to be worth while for the banks to offer it'. Well, it's not feasible for me to go and conduct business with my bank on a face-to-face basis, as I wrote earlier. I would cerainly not risk using the contactless card facility, though!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2013 10:46:47 GMT -5
I suppose life is full of risk, for example, talking to bank managers who ask you out is risky Reminds me of a californian I know who met her husband via selling real estate, smart lady, he thought he was smart, she far smarter
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