GLOBAL BANKING – GLOBAL WANKING
Put my debit card from
Lloyds TSB into a cash machine today and the message on the screen told me to Try again later as the machine was out
of order. I’d already punched the keys
for a Rs1500 withdrawal (£112). We had
flown from Agartala in Tripura via Kolkata:
but as with all things in Nepal and India, there were complications along
the way.
The first leg of the
journey we booked through the hotel we were staying in, Hotel City Centre, an overpriced joint I later wrote a bad review
about - to do with the refusal to accept
my credit card which the staff had assured me they would - and with the manager
demanding cash with some story about there being two-days before the money
could be transferred and that there was a Muslim holiday and some other thing
that was happening that would delay the payment, the complications increased.
I told him, Our Mastercard has been accepted all over India and there’s
never been a problem. Fulmaya
chipped in with, Oh! So you don’t trust us! But the manager just repeated his argument
three-times without changing anything as if we were fly-by-nights and never
intended paying our bill.
Anyhow, I almost regret
giving the hotel a bad review but I felt that the slow room service and the
drunks fighting till three in the morning like intoxicated cats with childish
slamming of doors and no one on the desk to complain to – plus the credit card
crap - justified a bad review.
So we had the flight from Agartala to Kolkata
and my nephew in Kathmandu who runs a small internet café/travel agency booked
us a flight from Kolkata to Kathmandu. The
catch – the money had to be paid in US dollars.
The dollars were
eventually got from my brother-in-law who is here from New York and he paid Jitu,
my nephew, for us and we had then to return the money in Nepalese rupees. That’s when I went to the cash machine and failed
to get the money. I tried another up the road and managed to get the remainder
of the money.
When I checked my bank
account, two-Rs15,000 had been taken out of Lloyds TSB. Eventually, contacted the manager of the Global Bank where the cash machine was and he looked a bit sheepish. I wrote a letter explaining the situation and
he phones me up the next day asking for the long number on the card. Of course, I think, this is a bit suspicious
as he or anyone in the head office could use the card to purchase something on
line. Anyhow, I phone him and gave him the
number.
The saga continues.
