Blatherings and a bank rant

 I awoke again at a god-awful hour - we were preparing to go on our trip to the US but I had to help harvest this bumper crop of capsicums and chillis from a tree first because we were going to give them to someone and then we realised it was a half hour before we had to board the plane and nobody had organised a taxi and THEN I remembered that we still had to put the cat into the cattery...

Thank goodness THAT was a dream.

18 days until my very well organised departure for our trip abroad - and the cat is booked into the cattery and the car is organised to be garaged by a friend and I don't have a chilli bush (any more - cue tears).

That was at 1:45am.

I went back to bed - but I have a rule, and that is if I can't get back to sleep in a half hour I pull the pin on the malarkey and arise.

You will be most pleased to know that my last 3 hours have been very productive, and I have a list for the rest of my day.

One of the things on my list is to go to a bank during my work lunch half-hour.  Given it is at least 10 minutes either way, I am counting on my work being flexible (they will be, I am flexible with them) because I am not holding my breath that the bank will rectify matters in 10 minutes.  I mean, it has taken them - what month are we in?  July 2025 - at least 9 months thus far.

Lets call them Star Bank.  Star Bank no longer have a branch in the little town that my parents come from.  

Mum used to be the best money manager, and my Dad didn't have to do a thing in relation to it except do stuff that got money in and spend it.

When Mum started to develop "memory issues" her team of children and children-in-law put in enough scaffolding to enable another few years of getting through tax time, but there came a time when simplification was required, and simplification means reducing the number of banks that were required to be dealt with.

One bank - the one that has a branch that Dad can go into locally - was to remain - however as we were unsure of what automatic payments were required on a credit card, and because Dad remained fond of his cheque book, a second bank - Star Bank - still had these accounts ticking over.

Star Bank has a part-time branch in a town about an hour away from where they live, and so it requires some logistics and holding your mouth right to get him to the bank with someone who can translate bureaucracy for him and his reactions for the bank.  We had that happen twice - the first time there was no online access offered to him but they cut off the access that Mum had previously used - which meant no statements or monitoring of accounts; and the second time when they gave an access for him to set up.

Unfortunately when it was set up, it only offered one of the two accounts, so he managed to see them while in that town again on a medical trip.   They flicked a few switches and made it whirr and assured him it was fixed. 

It wasn't.

On Wednesday when he was in my town for a medical appointment (I live 2 hours away) I took my lunch break to go to the bank with him.  They saw the problem immediately - he has 2 banking profiles, and the one he knows about wasn't the one with all the accesses.  When pressed, they were unallowed to tell me any details about that profile as only he was to know them.

In order for me to do so, I would have to become a signatory on his account, so we sat down with a johnny and did all the paperwork required for this to happen.  I was handed a card and advised I could set up my online access at home.

I received a text message advising it was set up, telling me I would get an email.

I did not get an email.

I tried to access at home.  Unfortunately I did not receive any verification codes to enable the setup to be completed.

So yesterday (Thursday) my lunch break was spent on the phone with Star Bank.  The first third of this time was going around and around in circles advising me that it would be easier on the app, just log in!  and then asking me for an access code that I did not have because (rinse and repeat).  

I hung up and eventually found my way through to the promise of a real person. So the next 10 minutes was spent on hold.  Finally a young man came on to "help" me.

Turns out - the number on the card that they handed me was wrong, and the only way to fix this is for me to go back into the bank...

Hoo boy.  Wish me luck!

(Picture of Dad holding court with (anti-clockwise) his brother, his sister, her daughter, Mum and my aunt)