I love winning an argument with my bank…

Got a surprise today. Checked my bank account on my mobile phone and discovered that it was massively overdrawn. Went to check the statement and discovered that the bank had taken off a charge.

Now, I knew that I had a charge for a returned overpayment due, but the bank had said that they would give me 14 days notice of when this was to happen. This isn’t, as it turns out, the bank doing something nice but the law. Well, I hadn’t received this notice.

I headed down to the bank to have it out with them.

I took the latest letter they had sent me and even took the time to highlight where it said that they would give me the notice. After a short period of queueing I spoke to the person and argued with them.

You see, I don’t get paper statements (I think they are more hassle than their worth) and the printout of my statement they had stated that they had warned me. I contended that it didn’t say that on the online statement and therefore it didn’t count as a warning. Eventually I took the printout and left.

I went straight to the LRC and checked online. sure enough, the exact same page that the guy had printed out didn’t have the notification on it. Smiling, I logged onto one of the library computers (can’t send anything to the printer from my laptop) and printed the same out. I then headed back to the bank.

Upon speaking to the bloke again he noticed that I was right all along. He then said that he didn’t see what the online statement said so he didn’t know it was different to the one he printed off. (Which, of course, would be why he took great pains to explain to me that they were indeed one and the same thing when I was in before.) He then had to get someone else to go through things with me.

I sat down with that person and explained, yet again, what the situation was and the person finally agreed that I hadn’t received the necessary notification. I was told that the money would be refunded (which I’m still waiting on going through my account) but in return I had to agree that if this situation happened again I would not be entitled to a refund.

So I’m going to hunt around online later (probably tomorrow) and find out if that’s legal. Cos it seems to me that if that is the case my bank can remove money from my account whenever they want, call it a charge and I won’t see it again, which doesn’t seem fair.

Now, if only my fucking Rage ticket would hurry up and arrive.

Couple of fun things for you. On Friday, my lighter stopped working. Both of them. (I had one that was just about dead but still worked that I used as a backup.) So I bought a new one. Now, I love cute ladybugs as much as the next person, but I don’t think this is a good idea:

(As one friend said on fb: ‘Look! Kids! Play with me!’)

And Lego+felt tip pen+Mac=WIN!:

Will