Disaster two

A few days ago we got letters from the Halifax branch of the Bank of Scotland suggesting that we roll over a couple of maturing fixed term ISA's into new fixed term ISA's. Fine, let's do that.

Go online as suggested, to find no maturity instructions. Thoroughly click the accounts in question to no avail. I can change my online preferences. I can even change the name of the account. But I do not seem to be able to give in maturity instructions. And the help is not helpful at all.

Try phoning them up. Go through a long palaver, with their computer taking in various account numbers and other stuff. Lots of 'would that be beta for 'B'? Please respond 'yes' or 'no'...'. Eventually get through to a person, who has no idea what is wrong with the computer but offers me a phone number from which I will be able to obtain an online security number through the post, armed with which I will be able to talk to another person about maturity. Do have a nice day.

Try phoning them up again, using a second number. Go through the same palaver again. To get a high pitched, continuous whine. Put the phone down.

Try phoning them up yet again, using a third number. Go through the same palaver yet again. Perhaps sir's browser is up the spout. Clear out all your cookies and try again.

Try using Edge rather than Chrome. Exactly the same screens, exactly the same problem.

In desperation, fill in the forms which came with the letter. Both with holes punched through one of the square bar codes. Both in the same envelope. Both possible sources of confusion in their postroom. Will we get sorted out before the deadline in 10 days time?

Once again, a service organisation has saved itself some money by putting a lot of time and bother onto me. But taking the two together, it seems to me that we are worse off than we were before. But no doubt the fat cats at the top of the Bank of Scotland heap know better.

PS: 20180505: for the first time ever, yesterday I was phoned up by a well-spoken young lady who was working for a company that did customer satisfaction surveys for Halifax. She wanted to talk about my most recent experience, the last of my three calls that is, with the Halifax telephone operation. I hope I did not leave her with the impression that the operator was incompetent, was at fault, when the fault lies with the system. But what a coincidence! Has Cortana been leaking my private data?