Rant of the Day v2.

[ricardian]

Out here in the middle of nowhere, my internet provider, who lives 3 doors down the road, finished laying fibre about 2 years ago.
It's a lot easier locallly as he just drove a cut-and-cover trencher fitted to a small tractor slowly down the grass shoulder, with loops up on poles every so often.
I am on an aerial pointed at his main aerial, so I get about 80MB/s, and thus don't really need fibre.
I pay C$86/m, which is the cheapest around, no limits (unlike the big boys), and basically instant service, though I've only lost service twice. Once was a hurricane where I was the first to be fixed after the Emergency Services, and the other he'd fixed within the hour.

I was with BT (British Telecom) for phone & internet (dial-up then broadband) from 1997 to 2020. I left BT when they wanted to charge me over £50 a month for telephone & broadband - max speed for broadband is <8Mbps and unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. I moved to SSE who charge £35 for the same services. And last year I signed up with Norsenet who provided a dish & ancillary kit/cable to receive data from an adjacent island about 3 miles away, speeds >50Mbps, for £40 per month.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Same kind of business as mine, a local guy or two doing things better than the big companies, for less. More power to their elbow!

[CharlieOneSix]

...... last year I signed up with Norsenet who provided a dish & ancillary kit/cable to receive data from an adjacent island about 3 miles away, speeds >50Mbps, for £40 per month.

I ditched our BT landline and BT internet service about 3 years ago. The best internet speed was 1.5Mbps. I went wireless with a local firm in Aberdeen, Caleycom, since taken over by Converged Rural Broadband. I pay for 30Mbps but always get around 50-60Mbps and the monthly £39 fee hasn't risen since my initial contract.

[OFSO]

A message from Harini K. (Man ? Woman ? ) at the Royal Bank of Scotland in answer to my complaint entitled "Disgraceful Service'....

"RE: Feedback - Great Service - RBS.co.uk

Sir/Madam
Thank you for your e-mail.
At the outset, I would like to apologise for any inconvenience this matter may have caused you.
I would request you to provide the below details of you...." (sic)

....and then on to a standard complaints form. The irony of replying to my complaint with a form entitled Great Service has obviously escaped Harini K.

[OFSO]

I have been so disgracefully treated by that bank (account blocked, unable to open account, impudent questions about why I want to make a withdrawal, ignoring my letters, cheeky b*tch phoning me from the Isle of Man fraud centre) that I'm now taking my money out, but I was thinking of leaving the account open with just a few quid in so they'd have to administer it. Any other ideas ..?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I get a free basic account thanks to my age, so that's the account I left open. And don't sign up for e-statements. That way it costs them even more

[OFSO]

Sadly these days few banks send paper statements, even as a option.

[Smeagol]

Sadly these days few banks send paper statements, even as a option.

Mine does, every month! I refuse to do internet banking and make sure I use my local branch regularly to try and ensure that it stays open.

[Hydromet]

Sadly these days few banks send paper statements, even as a option.

Mine does, every month! I refuse to do internet banking and make sure I use my local branch regularly to try and ensure that it stays open.

You have a local branch? Looxury!

[Karearea]

Sadly these days few banks send paper statements, even as a option.

Mine does, every month! I refuse to do internet banking and make sure I use my local branch regularly to try and ensure that it stays open.

Oh huzzah! that makes two of us!

[G-CPTN]

Local town, population 13000 is closing Barclays leaving just Lloyds.

[Hydromet]

I had been with a bank for about 30 years - as well as savings and term accounts, I had substantial (for me) investments through their bonds and their on-line share trading platform. They told me that they were discontinuing my savings account, which they'd tempted me into in the first place, and replacing it with a different account which would penalise me for withdrawals. I went to them, and pointed out that if they proceeded, I would close all my accounts. They couldn't give a rat's, so I did. About a year later they wrote to me, trying to entice me back to a similar account to the one they'd just closed. I wrote to the chairman telling him what to do with his invitation.

[OFSO]

It's a fact. They just don't care. More and more customers will leave and suddenly they have none of our money to play with and there's consternation. The solution is to close branches and pay the CEO off with a juicy bonus....

[Pinky the pilot]

I wrote to the chairman telling him what to do with his invitation

I trust that your reply was suitably abusive! And did you get a reply?

I should think that your answer to the above would be respectively, yes and no.

[Hydromet]

I wrote to the chairman telling him what to do with his invitation

I trust that your reply was suitably abusive! And did you get a reply?

I should think that your answer to the above would be respectively, yes and no.

Got it in one.

[ricardian]

A measure of wine in a Catalan mountain-country restaurant is a bottle - if it's a local red wine it's usually free. (Included with the meal: three courses €12.)

Big Arif's kebab in Limassol in the mid 1960s went up to 500 mils but the unlimited amount of Kokinelli was still free.

[1DC]

Up until about five years ago we had two branches of Lloyds locally, we banked with one of them. We received a letter saying our branch was closing but the other was staying open and we would be moved and advised accordingly. Subsequently we received our letter with our new branch details, not to the other local branch as we assumed but to another town about twenty miles away. When Mrs 1DC went in to throw her wobbler she was told not to worry about it because she could use whatever branch she liked because nobody cared where she actually banked, and so it is is nobody cares!

[G-CPTN]

I started work for a new employer who 'insisted' that I should bank with the local (to them) branch of 'not my bank'.

I subsequently moved employers again.

Since then (currently) that bank has decided to close (1st March) the branch so I will be on the move again.

When I retired I decided to segregate my pension income from my personal 'wealth', however my original (since starting university) bank declined my business - accusing me of money laundering - so I ended up using the building society account that I established to accumulate the expenses before the Diners card account fell due for payment,

Of course that Building Society has closed the branches local to where I live so I would have to travel an hour each way to the city for a face to face encounter.

I might have to transfer to the one remaining bank in my local town (if they will have me) - that is if they decide to stay . . .

I currently live in a village (population 3800) with excellent and frequent public transport links (half-hourly until after midnight) to the nearby town 4 miles away population 14000 where I grew up and went to school.
We have an excellent Post Office in the village (open from 7am to 6pm as a paper shop seven days a week) and credit transfers can be made to all major High Street banks.

No Post Office accounts though.

We had two banks (Lloyds and Barclays) until seven years ago - and an off licence until they removed the ATM. People would drive into the village from miles around, withdraw cash and buy their booze.
The Off Licence closed within a couple of weeks.

Bank and Off Licence premises still unoccupied,

[OFSO]

The Royal Bank of Scotland seemingly considers that transactions with the Post Office ( such as ordering euros for collection) are fraudulent; four times my account has now been blocked after ordering holiday money. I asked the RBS last time precisely what amount triggers the fraud squad: Their response was "can't tell you that, sir,".

[ExSp33db1rd]

Natwest closed my 50 years business branch twi years ago, and moved me to another town, actually not too far away - had I still been living in the UK !

They have just closed that branch now, and refuse to tell me where they have moved my account to. Maybe if I write to Head Office someone will know, but why can't they tell me. Their useless "Chat " robot doesn't know, nor does the eventual Speak to a Human. All I know is that my branch code has remained the same following both closures, and at the moment I can still operate Online. So far.

A Singapore bank has refused to close an account either Online or by mail, I must physically present myself to "my local branch" - in Singapore, some 12 hours flight away. I am going to transfer all remaining cash to my NZ bank, then stuff them - but I must first ensure that there isn't an occasional account fee of course, don't think there is but one canna be tooo carrefull.