Uh oh, here comes trouble
So it came today!!! I’m SO excited. It’s very pretty actually, it’s a rather nice shade of blue, with hints of purple. I love it. It suits me, and I know it’ll get loads of wear.
So what is it? A handbag, maybe? A beautiful necklace? The latest shade of Chanel nail varnish? Nope, it’s better than that, it’s my new laser card! My very own, shiny, new little plastic square of infinite shopping potential!
I’d like to add here that, apart from the potential shopping pleasure, my excitement is somewhat due to the fact that it’s taken me two years to achieve this pinnacle of financial independence. My first visit to Hubby’s bank went something like this:
Me (after queuing for half an hour): ‘Hello, I’d like to open a bank account please’
Lady with Strangely Green Hair Behind Counter: ‘Oh, you need to go to the customer service counter over there’.
Me: ‘But I’ve just queued for half an hour’
LwSGHBC (with ‘firm but fair’ smile): ‘Sorry, I can’t deal with new accounts at this till’
Me (after queuing for a further half an hour at the customer service counter: ‘Hello, I’d like to open a bank account please’
Man behind Customer Service Counter with Unfeasibly Thick Lensed Glasses On: ‘Certainly, Madam. I’ll need two forms of identification, such as passport and driving licence, and a utility bill’.
Me: ‘Oh, I don’t have a utility bill in my name. I do have my passport, driving licence, birth and marriage certificates though…’
MBCSCwUTLGO: ‘Sorry, I’ll need that before I can open the account’
Me: ‘But my husband came over here while I was still in the UK and all the bills are therefore in his name’
MBCSCwUTLGO (standard bank issue firm but fair smile appearing): ‘Sorry, but those are the rules. We’ll need the utility bill before we can open the account’.
Me (quietly): ‘Bollocks’
MBCSCwUTLGO (cheerily): ‘Next please!’
Oh and my woes didn’t stop there. We were just about to move anyway, so decided we’d leave it until we registered at our new utility providers and put my name on the bills. Anyway, I was quite happy using Hubby’s credit card – there was no rush, I reasoned. Eventually, though, I made my way back to the bank, waited half an hour in the correct queue, then smugly handed over my passport, driving licence and Eircom bill. But there was a problem. By this stage, Hubby had acquired a Personal Account Manager (bloody show off), who returned to his counter looking concerned and clutching my passport. So get this: on a UK passport, there’s a transparent film covering your photo. It’s dotted with little shiny snowflake yokes (I thought they looked a bit like the little patterns on Louis Vuitton handbags, but Hubby couldn’t see it) that presumably act as some form of safety measure to stop you fiddling with the photo. Unfortunately for me, when my passport was photocopied, I had a big, shiny snowflake yoke smack bang in the middle of my nose. This, I was informed, was no good at all as I couldn’t be identified.
‘But it’s me!’ I stuttered. ‘I’m here with Hubby, and you’re his personal account whatnot, and he can tell you that it really is me, because I’m married to him and God knows I’m so bloody annoying that he’d never forget my face, trust me’ (Hubby nods helpfully at this point).
Several tries at the photocopier later, and the result was the same. I was the world’s first snowflake-nosed woman. And not wanting to set a precedent for giving bank accounts to people with strange noses, my case was referred to head office.
Me: ‘Bollocks’
Anyoo, head office saw reason and I was eventually deemed not to be a threat to national security (although I don’t think the ‘bollocks’ comment helped), but here I am, then, two years after my initial enquiry, and I have my very own bank account and shiny new laser card to boot. Phew. I’m off to make sure it works.
Hubby’s looking a bit worried.
Happy shopping!
TM: No! Would have jumped at the chance…ooh, and some sparkle would have been pleasant. If you have a Permanent TSB account here you can have whatever photo you like on the card…asking for trouble!
Isit: Indeed! Or at the very least a bit of glitter! x
Did they not ask for your inside leg measurement? Birth cert…that’s the thing, you cannot breath in Ireland without a birth cert!
I didn’t have any problems at all, I look like a snowflake anyway.
The white strip on my Laser card has worn off, and now I sign myself ‘void’!
When we were still living in the UK, my husband, who’s Irish, tried to set up a new bank account and couldn’t because all the bills were in his diminutive ‘nickname’, not his given name (long story), and they were insistent that they needed a properly-named utility bill, much like yourself.
The joke of it is that he wouldn’t even look up if you called him by his proper name. And because he was technically a foreigner, the bank was deeply suspicious when we tried to explain it, because they weren’t familiar with the name (this sounds a lot more exotic than it really was but I don’t want to give my hubbie’s name out on the t’internet!).
I blame the Money Laundering Act, it’s tightened up every aspect of applying for anything financial.
Susan: Strange, isn’t it. By contrast, I actually managed to open a bank account in the UK over the internet whilst in Ireland. That’s the English for you – we don’t give a shit about security!!
Jen: Ah yes, Hubby suffers with that. And I do too to a certain extent, especially as my nickname starts with a different letter to my full name. Which obviously makes me a terrorist. x
Pin numbers are hardly ever used .. so beware, make sure you have your passport on your at all time, or your driving license ……
It was ok, I didn’t put all the stuff back … some white trash did that for me !
June: Funnily enough, Ulster Bank were advertising at the time, so we rang them. Someone rang us back a week later (a week!) and we said forget it. Jeez, anyone would think I wanted them to give ME money instead of the other way round. And to add insult to injury, when I received my first statement the starting balance was 3.70 overdrawn due to ‘stamp duty’. Eh?
I left an account in the UK with a quid in it, then they charged me 1.17 interest, and then a 25 quid charge for being overdrawn, and soon it was a hundred pounds overdrawn. Soon adds up x