LATEST MOAN FROM YOU AND ME - 2021

Is this the right time for you to start selling stuff from your freezers to make a tidy profit?

 

Don't think there's a shortage of freezers but no lorries to deliver them because of lack of drivers and petrol.

 

That's good. I'm an expert on 'no such word' and am compiling a dictionary of them.

It will fit nicely with my 'obsolete word' dictionary (@wiseowl mentions my use of them reasonably often) and with my instruction book on how to make short posts end up as long ones.

 

My moan is banks, again!

This time it is on behalf of my daughter. She is about to turn 18 and in the world we live in where you have to tap in with debit cards for bus fares etc she needs a current account; she also needs a savings account as her trust fund is about to mature with a few grand coming out of it - the savings account she has at the moment is frozen/locked as it is the old 'Abbey National' book style account that they are doing away with.

Mrs C went to Barclays yesterday where she has banked for the thick end of quarter of a century; they wanted photo ID for our daughter which we do not have. No other options offered.

Santander were similarly useless - I have banked with them since they were Abbey National, 45 years ago and my daughter's savings account has been with them for 17 years. Computer says no. Photo ID only.

Birth certificate, our proof of address, her letter from the trust fun as her proof of address, college letters as proof of address... nope. Photo ID only.

Santander unlocked the savings account so the trust fund money could be paid into it, but they won't put it into an account she can actually access. Needless to say they were told to go forth and multiply if they thought for a second that they are getting a thousands to hold onto when they are being the way they are. I have arrived at the conclusion that the world would be a much better place without bankers and politicians.

 

That's the trouble - they're all 'bankers'!

 

They are!

Bearing in mind that the DVLA are backed up for months at the moment, so a provisional licence is out of the range of options really; the Post Office do an ID card, but even that is convoluted - essentially, if her teacher refuses to sign the photo ID, we are off to the doctor and I know for sure that they charge for the pleasure.

All of the ID options I have looked at rely on the next one, so getting the first is a royal pain in the backside - made a ton worse by the fact that they no longer give out physical NI cards.

Born in the UK, has a birth certificate available to prove it, letters from a trust fund with NI number on it, has been through the UK education system, is registered with the NHS.... oh, and has a savings account already! On top of that, we have various ID including me having a driving licence, and of course pay our various taxes... but oh no, that is not sufficient. They want you to jump through hoops and potentially spend a fortune to be able to trust them with your own money, it is utterly perverse.

 

I don't think they are currently on strike, but that is a factor - a lot of their staff are apparently refusing to come back into the office to work and throughput had already suffered as a result of covid, My understanding is that delays are up to five months at the moment.

 

That's only because people keep advertising the fact that some stations are open!