Dogs, idiots and fat, ugly women

I’ve got a sign above my head that can only be seen by dogs, idiots and fat, ugly women. I’ve no idea what the sign says but it must be there as they all make a beeline to me. The worrying thing now is, I think this sign can be seen even when I use the phone. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like being approached by dogs and the occasion fat, ugly woman. In fact, some would say the two groups are one and the same. However, the idiots of this world, I can do without.

All I want to do is transfer USD to an account, held in the name of my Indian tour operator, at the State Bank of India. I’ve contacted the chap in India, he’s contacted his bank and equipped with all the relevant details, we’re set to go. How difficult can it be? Being a tech savvy kind of guy, online banking is the way forward. I can keep out of the sweaty branch at lunchtime and conduct all my business online or over the phone. Tickety boo!

Whilst I can open a new deposit account “in a few easy clicks” there’s no way to transfer money from one bank to another. So, it looks like it’ll have to be phone banking. After fifteen minutes talking to some lame-brained Lloyds telephone monkey, my life force is being sapped from me at an alarming rate. Have I got the receiving bank’s identifying code? No. Have I got the BIC? Have I got Saturday’s lottery numbers?...Ok, I made the last one up but you get the idea. No matter, let’s go direct to source and speak to someone at the State bank of India.

I’m in luck. There’s a State Bank of India branch just down the road from me. I’ll give them a phone call. Surely, I can buy some travellers cheques (commission free) and then just deposit them into the tour operator’s account? If only life were that simple. Have I got an account at the State Bank? No. “Oh well you’ll have to open one and then transfer the money to the receiver’s account and then keep the account open with a minimum of $1,000US.” What about the traveller’s cheques idea? I might as well have asked her about football’s offside law. Gibberish, that’s what she came back at me with, gibberish!

Meanwhile, the local dogs must have smelt my presence. Woof! Woof woof! I could just about hear the bank employee now over the noise of the dogs. Woof woof! “look on the…”woof woof! “and you’ll be see..” woof! Woof woof!”… then contact your bank…” woof woof woof! “...but there’s a charge” I lost the will to live, hung up and contacted Lloyds again. Thirty minutes later and I was still dealing with a phone monkey reading from a pre-determined, un-wavering script when… my phone gave up the ghost and, like me, its batteries went flat.

Tail between my legs, I trekked to my local branch of Lloyds at lunchtime. Another soul destroying experience. The place was crammed to the rafters with folk. Luckily, the good folk at Lloyds have come up with a novel way of managing the queues. Shut a couple of teller’s windows and go for lunch. No noisy, inconsiderate customers for them. A Greggs steak slice and sit on a bench for thirty minutes, that should see the queue die down a bit! Bastards!

Forty minutes later, with my lunch missed, the transaction is complete. Apparently, it’ll take twelve to fifteen working days for the money to get India. There’s no guarantee the money will get there and they won’t notify me if it does. I’ve been charged £20 for this wonderful service and I’ll be paying again when the recipient receives the money. I can’t understand why we have a banking crisis with this standard of service. Ah well, as long as there’s a couple of pounds left over for them to award their executives a nice bonus. Bastards the lot of ‘em!

Now then, where’s that fat, ugly woman?