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Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 11:15 pm
by Capetonian
I wrote a cheque last month to friends, a married couple, and as I didn't know if they had a joint account or individual, made the cheque out to : Mr and/or Mrs John Smith.
Frigging bank wouldn't take it as they don't have a joint account. I rang my bank, they said it would have been fine, but it's up to the payees' bank to accept or not. Lloyds. Not my first brush with them.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:02 am
by ExSp33db1rd
Cheque ? Wots that ?

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:27 am
by Mrs Ex-Ascot
ExSp33db1rd wrote:
Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:02 am
Cheque ? Wots that ?
I was thinking the same thing Speedy; haven't used a cheque book or paying in book for at least eighteen years. Even here in Bots you hardly ever see people paying by cheque..........mainly because most places won't accept them. :D

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:56 am
by ExSp33db1rd
Not only that, we try to visit California each year (tho' we are considering the Corona thing, like you, and wonder if NZ will let us back in, tho' we do have NZ passports, which helps ) and more and more retailers are now refusing cash ! I'm tempted to pretend that I hadn't seen the notice on the door, and having collected my takeaway coffee then point out that all US dollar bills bear the inscription " Legal tender for all debts private and public" and if they still refuse just walk out with my coffee !

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 8:00 am
by OFSO
There might be a chequebook or two buried deep in the bottom of the safe, but I doubt it. I haven't written a cheque for 20 years. However Mrs OFSO just told me she wrote a cheque at Christmas, so they are still around.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 9:06 am
by Capetonian
I write about 5 cheques a year. They can be useful, and there's always a benefit if the recipient doesn't pay them in.
Remember Travellers' Cheques?
Amex, TC, etc used to make most of their profits from the cash reserves generated by TCs that were never cashed, or which sat in safes and so on for years, whilst they had the use of the money. They were also a perfect instrument for money laundering and helped lots of people get their bucks out of ZA when we had very strict exchange control and the rand had a value! At one time the USD was worth slightly more than ZAR.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 11:33 am
by ian16th
Capetonian wrote:
Sun Mar 01, 2020 9:06 am
At one time the USD was worth slightly more than ZAR.
At many points the ZAR was worth more than the USD.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2020 9:55 pm
by Cooda
No 1 son is developing a business focussed on international trading.

He is now discovering the joys of scam banks. Names similar to but not quite the same as reputable banking houses, fake addresses, fake SWIFT codes, fake bond certificates, forged documentation and dodgy websites. The basic scam is easily detected but leads you into a web of increasing complexity as they offer up alternative “banks”. One scam even proudly claimed to be the West Pack Ban King Corporation.

He’s avoided being burned so far and has saved his clients from embarrassment on a number of occasions. So he’s now expanding his company’s services to including the offering of due diligence checks to help his clients find reputable financial organisations.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:18 am
by barkingmad
This short chat is nearly 6 years old but has anything changed since then? Apart from the increase in the number of illegal rich owning properties in the city.

This lady might just be a reader/subscriber to the UK satirical rag ‘Private Eye’ who have been hammering this topic for years.
That rag allegedly circulates in the HoC so, if correct, there’s no way our leaders can claim ignorance of the scope of this corruption.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 6:29 pm
by Capetonian
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/ ... ng-mobiles

How can banks insist that I have a mobile?

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:32 pm
by jimtherev
Back at the beginning of the year our church building was closed for a couple of days due to inclement weather, heating failure & so on. Outside shutter locked down; letter box unreachable.
Posty can't deliver bank statement, marks envelope (for what reason I can't imagine) "gone away".
Bank received statement; without consulting anyone closes account, despite there being three other accounts with practically the same name and consecutive a/c numbers (don't ask - Charities Act nonsense) still extant.

Fortunately this was an a/c we don't use much, but it has taken, to date, 9 weeks to re-instate it. The usual dialogue 'but how do I know this signature is yours?' 'Because it's on the signature card you've been using for the other accounts for six years.' etcetera, undsoweiter so on so fifth.

And we trust them with our money?

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:22 am
by llondel
On a similar subject, look up "escheatment". It's even got "cheat" in the middle of it. If you don't poke your bank or investment account for too long, the state confiscates it. There are processes to get it back (guess why I know this...) and for money in a bank account that's not too bad, but if it was an investment then they liquidate the stock and keep the money. If you come to claim it back you get the value of it as it was acquired. There is a story of some chap who bought a bunch of Amazon stock, left the account untouched for 20 years and when he went back for it at retirement expecting it to be worth $200k, he discovered it had been confiscated many years earlier and he only got $8k from it.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:47 am
by ExSp33db1rd
How can banks insist that I have a mobile?
Exactly. And even with one banks won't make International calls, so with accounts in USA, UK, & Singapore Mrs.ExS and self are stuffed, except that .... Singapore bank has sent me a credit card sized digital gadget that generates a one-time PIN number that I can put on to my computer, how it works is a mystery ( and thanks to those who have previously tried to explain it to me ! ) and I then get access to Online Banking, but these things appear to be unknown to UK and USA banks.

Mrs ExS has subscribed to a USA phone with global roaming, so it keeps the USA number and the bank doesn't know she is not in the USA. Costs a fortune to maintain, but it works - so far.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:26 am
by FD2
About 6 weeks ago I had to make a transaction from my UK Royal Bank of Scotland or NatWest as it will be in future and when I tried to log in I got a text with the appropriate numbers on it. After I had picked myself up off the floor, the log in was fine and I did what was required and logged out of my account again. Chancing my luck I tried logging in to my wife's account and it worked, with a text to her New Zealand mobile containing the magic numbers!

Yesterday I tried logging in again and it was back to the little hand held gizmo and inserting my debit card. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted - someone must have made an error programming their computer system! Will I contact the new CEO to find out why they only provide the service to UK mobiles? What's the bloody point, as I'll just get a standard reply which makes no sense from some spotty youth in Chatham.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:18 am
by Rwy in Sight
Cape, the two-stage id is a very welcome addition. Although the gismo ExSp33db1rd describes is useful, its service is withdrawn and it is not easy to carry it always with you.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:05 am
by k3k3
My German bank wants to send stuff to my mobile phone, on the contact details page the drop down menu lets me select Vereingtes Königreich and lets me put +44 in, but once I put my UK mobile no. in it rejects it because it doesn't start with 015, 016 or 017 (the mobile prefixes in Germany).

Luckily for me there is a helpful lady, Melanie, at the bank who can normally sort things out.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:59 pm
by ian16th
ExSp33db1rd wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:47 am
Singapore bank has sent me a credit card sized digital gadget that generates a one-time PIN number that I can put on to my computer, how it works is a mystery ( and thanks to those who have previously tried to explain it to me ! ) and I then get access to Online Banking, but these things appear to be unknown to UK and USA banks.
Barclays, Jersey sent me this by courier, they call it a PinSentry.
It works OK, but I don't know if it will survive a battery change.
PinSentry.jpg
PinSentry.jpg (41.96 KiB) Viewed 361 times

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:08 pm
by Boac
Yes it will - or ask for a replacement? I've used the Barclays PS for years with no problem and those of other banks too.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:31 pm
by llondel
I have two of those, I had one for years and then last year unsolicited they sent me another one so I haven't had to find out about the battery.

Re: Royal Bank of Wankers

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:30 pm
by k3k3
I switched from Barclays and started getting those through the post once a month, I took half a dozen in to a branch and the cascade stopped.