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News and Comment March 2024

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27 March (Part 1) - Sent to Coventry

The plan for yesterday afternoon was to listen to Monday’s two hour long Children’s and Education Scrutiny meeting but a personal matter got in the way and I became so furious about it that it kept me awake for much of the night. It is a banking matter and the Coventry Building Society has in effect confiscated a large chunk of my savings. Maybe my cousin who I always regarded as a bit backward because he refuses to do on-line banking or allow the utilities and his Council to Direct Debit his account and pays for things by cheque has the right idea after all. But he is lucky to live only five minutes walk away from his bank branch.

CoventryI have been totally on-line for nearly 25 years and my account with the Coventry Building Society is at least 17 years old, I have emails from them, going back that far. I fortunately don’t have to worry too much about money and keep my current account well funded so that there is no need to be checking daily to ensure there is enough in it. However this week I indulged myself with another piece of expensive electronics and judged I should perhaps keep the current account healthy with a transfer from my Coventry account; something I have not needed to do for about a year.

I was aware that the Coventry had ‘improved’ their website since I last used it but the old ‘web id’ from 2007 still worked. It is hidden in a secret file on my PC because it is far from friendly and looks a bit like this: 5fn48zye; but isn’t for obvious reasons. I typed it in and the Coventry website opened and invited me to make a withdrawal to my current account. Unlike previous occasions it sent a code to my mobile but that is pretty much standard practice these days.

Then, after accepting the withdrawal request, it asked me to enter the 2nd, 3rd and 5th digit of my password which was rejected twice with a warning that a third failure would lead to a lock out; so I phoned them for guidance and was told I should use the very same credentials as I had used to log on; so I did and was promptly locked out.

No matter, said the lady I can cancel your on-line account, give it 15 minutes and you can Register afresh.

I did that using the old web ID as instructed and input my name, address, Coventry account number etc. until I got to the password entry. I had expected to have been offered a new one but that didn’t happen, so I tried the old one which was rejected. I tried again in case I had confused the 4th letter with the 5th letter or something. Same result. Invalid. I phoned again but the call dropped out. The next call was more successful and this time the security questions included my National Insurance number so what with me answering all the other questions they knew absolutely who they were talking to.

“What do I do now?” was the obvious question. “You must be mistyping” came the reply and I was encouraged to try once more. That third occasion not only locked me out of on-line banking, it killed telephone banking too. They seriously believed that I could type the 5fn number accurately every time but picking out the second letter of a password was beyond me six times over.

So I made a formal complaint and was told that the best they could do was send me a letter containing an as yet unknown set of instructions and however urgent the request for funds might be there was no way they could let me have my own money.

I am told that I will get a phone call tomorrow afternoon to sweet talk me into not closing my three Coventry accounts. Well good luck with that, why would anyone bank with an organisation which temporarily removes access to your money after following their telephone instructions?

When they find out that my lady friend has well into six figures with them because she tends to copy what I do they may be even less pleased.

Anyway there are better interest rates available elsewhere. It wasn’t worth bothering before, but now it is.

 

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