Financially institutionalised

Today my support for the IMB Building Society ended. Officially. I stuck by them through fees, lack of ATMs and an easily reachable branch out of loyalty to my home town (and the fact they were the only people around who had a debit card deal when I first needed one). So today, while I was taking care of business in a number of ways, I called them up to order a new card. My old one has virtually snapped, and is unusable.

After going through the usual ID checks, and a brief conversation between customer service agent and team leader, I was told I couldn’t get a new card…because there isn’t a password on my account. Apparently, to stop the threat of credit card fraud, they won’t issue cards without the password verification. Because someone could know my full name, date of birth and address, order a new card to my place, then wait by the letterbox for it to arrive.

(I asked the obvious question: “Why did you bother asking me my full name, date of birth and address then?” and no intelligent answer was forthcoming.)

When she offered to send out a form to my place, so I could fill it out with a password, I decided the IMB was dead to me. I didn’t even bother pointing out the fact that were I attempting to commit identity fraud (and had access to Shane Cubis’s letterbox), I could just go that extra mile and MAKE UP A PASSWORD, THEN ORDER A NEW CARD ANYWAY.

The best part of the call was when she proceeded to ask if I was aware of IMB’s insurance options. Yep, she knew I was angry, I’d implied I was going to abandon the account…and she went for the upsell.

Well done, IMB. You’ve driven me fully into the arms of the Big Four. At least when they’re fucking me over, it makes some kind of evil sense. So I’ve diverted my pay and direct debits into my Commonwealth Bank account. They did give me a Dollarmite moneybox when I was a kid, after all.

Hmm…I wonder if you need a password to close an account?