Name and shame

Apparently I have a voicemail message. It’s something I forgot to switch off before leaving the UK. With having the Ghana sim card, my phone will be going straight to voicemail. Today I popped back in the Vodafone sim to see if there was anything. Calls cost £1.60 per minute back to the UK on Vodafone. When I called them to ask about roaming charges in Ghana, they told me they had no roaming agreement here. Since my arrival, I’ve found the logo is daubed on everything from shipping containers and roadside trees, to all the mile markers sponsored by them. The company owns the whole land line infrastructure here. They also boast the fastest internet café in Africa. The café just opened on Monday. I called the UK number for voicemails from my local card. After being told I had the wrong pin, I checked and entered it again. Immediately I was greeted with “You have entered the wrong pin number, your mailbox has now been locked, please call customer services, goodbye” Naturally less than enamoured with the response, I called back to the UK customer services number. Force of habit would have me call 191, this would certainly have been answered had I only dialled those digits. Except, over here, the person at the other end would have been asking which emergency service I required! Eventually, I got through to someone who assured me a text would be sent. This was only valid for one hour so I had to move fast. Kevin was finishing off some work before we were due to go over to the new house. I swapped cards over and patiently waited and waited. No text. We had to go so I left it. When we got back, I popped in the Vodafone sim again and still no message. At this, I called customer services and asked them to confirm a call had taken place earlier. I made it clear, in no uncertain terms, how angry I was at having to pay again and that I would not expect to be billed for this phone call. My rant may have continued, except for the little beep in my ear showing this guy had actually done his job properly. He was very apologetic and I made it clear I had no problem with him. I have now checked my message. It was the bodyshop about the damage caused when a guy ran into the back of me over a month ago in Union Street Aberdeen. Something already in hand back home thanks to Ashley.

The reason I was so anxious to retrieve my message, is that I thought it might have been my bank’s fraud department. While I’m on a name and shame, let’s leave Vodafone and move to The Royal Bank of Scotland.

After being stung before by RBS when I’ve tried to take out money abroad, I was wise to this and called my branch to make them aware I was going away. I was armed with the dates I was out of the country so they would not block my debit card….again!! I fully expected this to be a simple case where they would update their automated system to allow reasonable transactions while I was in Ghana. How foolish of me to assume they would make this simple. My branch told me that, regardless of telling them my itinerary, their computer would still automatically block any transaction it decided was fraudulent. I would then need to call the anti fraud team back in the UK to sort it out. I was given the hotline number and immediately called it in an attempt to reason with them. Again, it was explained to me that the computer knows best. Again, I protested “But I’m giving you advance warning of where I’m going, you’re telling me that I’ll get my card blocked whatever I do, AND you will eventually charge me for the privilege of withdrawing my own money abroad” I went on to remind them that while I was in Canada, I missed out on a few drinks in a bar, then when I decided to just have an early night and resolve it in the morning. That smart arse computer called me twice in the middle of the night to tell me what I already knew, that being that I couldn’t take out any money. On that occasion, I finally called the fraud team just before six in the morning, raging with not enough sleep due to the three am and five am alarm calls. Made worse by knowing I was spending a fortune in international call costs and only had one individual coffee pod to keep me sane in the motel room. The best thing about that time had been that I had used my debit card to buy my plane ticket and Duty Free less than a week before. The response I got to this barrage of examples as to why the computer was an ignorant, arrogant piece of shit was “I can only apologise” I didn’t want an apology, I wanted to remind them that my newest debit card proudly proclaims that it can be used in almost every country of the world, yet the first time you try to use it, even with forewarning of it’s use, it gets blocked.
I’m almost afraid to say that this has a happy ending so far. I have withdrawn 200 Cedes, equivalent to just under £100, and not a peep out of the sanctimonious RBS computer. I haven’t been here that long, I’m sure it will bite sooner or later. I should just be thankful it doesn’t carry Malaria! I killed four mosquitoes in about ten minutes outside earlier. Their bodies recycled by the ants. Almost as soon as the dead beastie falls to the ground, an army of omnivores transport it back to be consumed.