dormouse1953

 Yesterday I travelled from San Francisco to San Jose.

When I opened my e-mail yesterday morning there was a message from HSBC telling me to log in to internet banking for an important message.  Having no wish to connect to e-banking on an insecure hotel wi-fi system, I'd not brought the HSBC e-banking security device with me so I couldn't do that.  My worry was that they'd failed to take into account that I'd filed a travel plan with them before flying and they were assuming my card use in the US was fraudulent.

I travelled down to San Jose by train - only $10 for a 90 minute ride, which seems a good value.  Mind you, some of my fellow passengers were a bit weird.  I'd fallen in with an English couple travelling to Palo Alto but we were soon joined by a mad woman who was shouting out about how terrible gays were and were a danger to her son.  As I was reading A Very English Scandal about the Jeremy Thorpe affair, I was most amused by this.  There was also a guy playing very loud rock music on some portable device.

So I got to my hotel in San Jose mid-afternoon, unpacked and went to the convention centre and registered.  As I'd spent quite a bit of cash on taxi fares- it cost as much to get from my hotel to the station as for my entire train journey - when I saw an ATM in the convention centre I tried to get some cash.

It wouldn't give me any.

Assuming the worst concerning the e-mail HSBC had sent me, I tried phoning the number on my card.  But as it was outside office hours in the UK, all I got was telephone banking.  I've not used telephone banking for years and I couldn't remember my telephone banking number, so I got locked out.

I also more or less used up all my credit on my mobile, which I usually top up at an ATM. 

I tried phoning again this morning before going for breakfast using the hotel phone.  (The alarm clock in my room plays the sound of church bells as an alarm.)  I had a very long and occasionally confusing conversation with a woman.  Because of the time lag, we kept talking over each other.  One of the security questions was how much I'd taken out of an ATM on Monday.  I had the amount in dollars, she had it sterling, and neither of us knew what the exchange rate was.

Finally she was able to tell me there was no block on the card and her guess was that the ATM itself was faulty.  And, indeed, I've just been able to use the ATM in the hotel lobby successfully.

And that important message from HSBC that I'd received the e-mail about?  She read it out for me.  As I'd reached 65, my card protection details have changed. 
I

Just got a letter from the Nationwide Building Society, telling me about how they are closing a number of branches.  Useful to know, I thought, but then I saw the list of branches they give.  They are all in south-east London, about 50 miles from where I now live.  The letter ends with the line "significant changes to Nationwide's branch network within your area" and the reverse has a table of "Alternative Branch and ATM services in your area", all branches in south-east London.

They'd sent the letter to my current address, but I suddenly realised that my account must still be listed as being at the Lewisham branch.

The idea of a bank account (and presumably a building society account) being associated with a branch seems to be a hangover from the days when you used to put on your best suit to meet your local bank manager.  I remember my father taking me to meet our bank manager when I started a bank account before going to university, and he recommending that the account I started should be at the branch nearest my university.

I have memories that when I took out a mortgage on a flat in Lewisham over thirty years ago, it was a requirement to move my savings account to the Lewisham branch.  (I'd opened it at a branch in the north of England.)  But I don't recall having to do that when moving to Guildford back in 1995.  And, more recently, I changed the type of savings account I have to one that is postal based anyway.  But, despite all this, despite having my address correct, they still think it would be useful to know where branches are in south-east London.

The bank account I started back in 1970 was moved to my home town after I graduated but I left there soon after when I got a job.  As my living arrangements were slightly fluid when I moved to London, I never moved the account after that and it never seemed worth the hassle.  With ATMs and the like, it doesn't seem to matter where your account is.

About a year ago, I got a letter from the bank telling me that that branch was now closing and they moved the account to a nearby town (which I've never lived in).  I phoned the enquiries number on the letter and asked if it was worth moving my account down to Guildford, and they said no.