Anyone who has ever tried to do business or work in Spain will know why!
Written in 1989 but nothing has changed.
I went to the Police to advise my new address and renew my Spanish Residence Permit. They didn't have the forms, so said they would 'phone me to let me know when they had them - very nice and helpful. I asked them if I could go to the Traffic Department and change the address on my driver's licence before I got it changed on the residence permit ... - 'yes, no problem, one thing has nothing to with another ...'. So off I went to the driving licence place where the guy told me that he couldn't do it until I had changed the address on the residence permit. When I told him that I had tried to do so, but they had run out of forms, he didn't believe me, so I told him to ring the lady at the police station (I even had her name) and confirm it. Then he started explaining it again and said 'perhaps you don't understand me properly .... ' which put my back up and I told him that I did understand him, but that what he was telling me was different to what the police had told me. After an argument which ensued because I refused to back down, he called his boss, it turned out that technically I and the police were right, but by now it was 2 o'clock and time to close for the day ..... In fact in Spain there is usually no right or wrong, but the person who holds out for longest wins.
Later I went to a supermarket, and wanted to pay for my purchases with a French VISA card. Because of the high incidence of fraud in Spain, it is standard practice when you pay by credit card, that they ask for identity - fair enough! I showed her my Spanish residence permit, which has always been adequate before, even in the same supermarket. But this bird had a different idea, and couldn't understand why I had a non-Spanish credit card and a Spanish residence permit. Oh God, I thought, this is going to get difficult. So I told her that although I live in Spain my salary is paid in France which is why I use a French credit card. Then she said that only Spanish credit cards are valid in Spain. How do you argue against that type of ignorance? I thought the banks would be interested to hear her point of view on that one, and tried to explain to her that the VISA symbol on a credit card was an international symbol of recognition.
I lived in Madrid and worked for a big multinational. Most of the employees spoke little or no Spanish, so we were recommended a bank (Bankinter) whose main branch in Paseo de la Castellana had 'English speaking' employees. In reality, it turned out that out of perhaps 100 staff, they had just one employee whose English language skills would have made Manuel from Fawlty Towers look like a professor of English. Beyond 'ghello, my name ghe is Alfonso, ghood morring', he spoke no English at all. Nada de nada. It was truly pathetic. He also sat behind his desk smoking and filling the office with foul smelling tar fumes. He was a very nice man. I have to say something in his favour, but he was as much use in this context as a chocolate teapot.
With the help of my Spanish assistant, and my then very limited knowledge of Spanish, I achieved the opening of a current account, along with a cheque book and a credit card.
At the same time, some of my colleagues, equally misled and gullible, went to the same bank and opened accounts. Let's call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Within days, or more probably weeks, our cheque books and credit cards turned up in the post at our residential addresses. Fine. Except that Matthew got Mark's cheque book and my credit card. Luke got John's credit card and Matthew's cheque book ............. and so on. We all sorted it out between ourselves at the office, and all was fine until Luke got my salary credited to his account and Mark's credit purchases debited to his account. It is hard to imagine how such errors could have occurred, but they did. And continued. When we tried to call the bank they promised to call back and never, ever, did.
This was in the good old days before the insanity of the Euro, and we all travelled a lot. Our accounts were, of course, in Pesetas (to which was added the complication of Pesetas convertibles and Pesetas non-convertibles) and the debits from the cards were in a variety of currencies including Albanian Lek, Mongolian Yakturds, Paraguayan Pesos and Russian Roubles. I paid a hotel bill for a (ghastly) three week stay at the Sheraton in Brussels with mine, and they debited me with 'x' million Spanish Potatoes, instead of 'x' million Belgian Waffles. At that time the Belgian waffle was worth roughly, and inexplicably, 3 times the Spanish Potato. So I was up on the deal, well up. After a month or so they picked up their error and rang me, leaving a message, which I ignored. Repeat, many times, over weeks. Eventually they rang while I was there and I answered, and told them I didn't understand and would call them back. giving them a dose of their own medicine, I didn't. Over a period of weeks.
I remain convinced, and recent experience has done nothing to change that view, that Spanish banks are the most useless on the planet.
