Tom's Top Tales: banks

On Friday we were talking about banks and the many evil - and good - things they do...Jason from the Borders had this to say:

... as a student, I took a break in the Netherlands, taking the train to Hull, ferry to Rotterdam and onwards by train to Utrecht...

At time there was heavy advertising " - don't leave home without it"... so I didn't - planned to stick it in a cash machine and get some guilders... even switched and got a MasterCard from them because it was more widely accepted at the time.

Except unbeknown to me there was a batch of MasterCards that were faulty and thus unusable electronically abroad. Neatly left me in the Netherlands with zero cash and no way of getting any. So in desperation I called the helpline number on the back (reversed charges) and spoke to a helpful lady... about 2 hours later a chap arrived on a motorcycle, checked my card & passport and gave me 300 guilders (about £90) in cash (debited from my account - I assumed).

Next morning the same chap was waiting for me at my accommodation with a new working card. I was a happy chappy.

Got back home and there was a snivelling letter of apology from and a cheque in consideration of my inconvenience that covered the cost of the travel.

Never ever saw the 300 guilders appear anywhere on any of my statements. Still dropped them though - the charlatans attempted to take a direct debit with the decimal point misplaced some time later.

Jason in the Borders