In my previous post, I set out the problems I had with Nationwide’s internet banking. In brief: it took me six months to get to the point where I could actually log in and do something with my own money. What I tried to do then was to transfer money into the HSBC account I share with my husband, so that we could pay our (Nationwide) mortgage. As my previous post makes clear, this proved impossible because Nationwide required me to use a card reader to carry out the transfer, and the card reader didn’t work.
Just over a year ago, I took what I thought was my first step towards more ethical banking: I opened a Nationwide current account. Before I opened the account, I made sure to ask about the internet banking. Did it work? Was it straightforward? Easy online banking was one of the few things I liked about my old HSBC account, and I wanted to be sure Nationwide would offer the same thing. I was assured that Nationwide’s internet banking was very easy to use and naively, I believed it.
I recently wrote about data protection, arguing that organisations don’t grasp the idea that adults can live together and make shared decisions. The default assumption is that you do not consent to any third party ringing up about your account, and it’s usually impossible to prove your consent without putting in more effort than it would take to make the call yourself in the first place.
Today I was having problems with the home internet connection. Not only am I a member of the over-privileged web generation, I’m also a freelancer who works from home a lot. So this was a big deal. I rang O2 to find out what was going on.
I’m impressed with how quickly I got through to their British-based call centre. Yes, there was the usual automated phone-answering system, but this one wasn’t too bad, and I got through to the correct human within minutes.