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sessifetRemember this?
I have updates to that. Well, several. Excuse me while I do not write about these in the amusing manner as you, gentle reader, might assume is my wont. I don't really have any sense of humour left when it comes to this. Just a feeling of bone deep weariness.
After calling NatWest three times, I finally got confirmation that a copy of my poll card would be sufficient, so I sent it off. Heard nothing. While waiting and working I at some point found a letter from the council stating they were satisfied that I lived where I said I lived. Whoo! Proof of address, right?
Dunno. Never heard from NatWest person when I called three times and left messages. The other people on the phone could not help me and told me to speak to the nice gentleman* who'd helped me before. Went 'Fuckit' copied the letter and everything else and resent it to Bob. Heard nothing. Spent some time visiting my friend Oscar the Ostrich. Tried phoning Bob**. He seems to be busier than God and just as hard to get a hold of, let alone wring an answer from. Gave up on ABFT and thought of a few more names to call him and the branch he works for.
Eventually gathered all my stuff: payslips, P60 form (how much more official can you get?) and letter from the council. Go to HSBC and explained the entire story to a very helpful woman. We went through everything I had with me and she spent a lot of time digging around on her computer and through their application procedures and then had to tell me that the P60 form is not valid proof of address, the letter from the council is not valid unless I am actually on the public electoral roll (*sobs*), and then she apologised for making me jump through all these hoops yet again.
So all I need to do now (*weeps*) is get a letter from my umbrella company and agency telling me they are satisfied with my claim of where I'm living and that I work for them and I am real and everything. And after all that, I still won't have a proper UK bank account. It will be a passport account which will work as a UK bank account, but there's no overdraft, no credit card, no lending options. I'll have to keep it for 12 months before it gets upgraded and I will pay 6 quid a month for the privilege.
And you know what? If I get it, I won't give a flying fuck. People at work are in awe that I have had quite so many problems getting this set up. They've seen all of them, but not all of them with the same person. Of course, I am willing to admit that I might have got this far a bit sooner if I hadn't thrown up my hands in frustration a while ago. All in all, I hope I get my two letters soon, and then I can finally open a bank account and start saving properly and actually build up some credit rating and such.
* Let's call him Bob. It rolls off the tongue a lot easier than 'arse-buggering festering twatmuffin', don't you think?
** Actually, I vote for a new acronym: ABFT.
I have updates to that. Well, several. Excuse me while I do not write about these in the amusing manner as you, gentle reader, might assume is my wont. I don't really have any sense of humour left when it comes to this. Just a feeling of bone deep weariness.
After calling NatWest three times, I finally got confirmation that a copy of my poll card would be sufficient, so I sent it off. Heard nothing. While waiting and working I at some point found a letter from the council stating they were satisfied that I lived where I said I lived. Whoo! Proof of address, right?
Dunno. Never heard from NatWest person when I called three times and left messages. The other people on the phone could not help me and told me to speak to the nice gentleman* who'd helped me before. Went 'Fuckit' copied the letter and everything else and resent it to Bob. Heard nothing. Spent some time visiting my friend Oscar the Ostrich. Tried phoning Bob**. He seems to be busier than God and just as hard to get a hold of, let alone wring an answer from. Gave up on ABFT and thought of a few more names to call him and the branch he works for.
Eventually gathered all my stuff: payslips, P60 form (how much more official can you get?) and letter from the council. Go to HSBC and explained the entire story to a very helpful woman. We went through everything I had with me and she spent a lot of time digging around on her computer and through their application procedures and then had to tell me that the P60 form is not valid proof of address, the letter from the council is not valid unless I am actually on the public electoral roll (*sobs*), and then she apologised for making me jump through all these hoops yet again.
So all I need to do now (*weeps*) is get a letter from my umbrella company and agency telling me they are satisfied with my claim of where I'm living and that I work for them and I am real and everything. And after all that, I still won't have a proper UK bank account. It will be a passport account which will work as a UK bank account, but there's no overdraft, no credit card, no lending options. I'll have to keep it for 12 months before it gets upgraded and I will pay 6 quid a month for the privilege.
And you know what? If I get it, I won't give a flying fuck. People at work are in awe that I have had quite so many problems getting this set up. They've seen all of them, but not all of them with the same person. Of course, I am willing to admit that I might have got this far a bit sooner if I hadn't thrown up my hands in frustration a while ago. All in all, I hope I get my two letters soon, and then I can finally open a bank account and start saving properly and actually build up some credit rating and such.
* Let's call him Bob. It rolls off the tongue a lot easier than 'arse-buggering festering twatmuffin', don't you think?
** Actually, I vote for a new acronym: ABFT.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 11:19 am (UTC)You know about the troubles I had, but that was eventually all solved by a letter from my uni. I'm downright amazed that a letter from your employer is not sufficient in your case.
I never had a 'passport account'. In fact, two months after I got my normal account (which I'm pretty sure was not a student account) I took out a creditcard.. so unless the rules is to make it easier for students than for actually gainfully employed people, this is really baffling. My experience was with Lloyds, by the way. If you feel up to it, you could check out what their hoops are in your case?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 11:39 am (UTC)I am certainly going to give it a go, but only after HSBC has either gone through or fails spectacularly five seconds from the finish line. I currently do not have the ability to deal with two applications. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 01:29 pm (UTC)Two reasons:
- First of all, the banks are now doubly keen to cover their arses, because if somebody is found to be laundering money through their bank, they have to be able to show that they could not possibly be seen to have been "negligent". And obviously, all furriners are suspicious... (or more to the point because the banks' set-in-stone ID procedures do not allow for the possibility of somebody who doesn't have the standard documents, and the people in the branches have no authority to use common sense. Idiotic management again.)
- Secondly, because it's not now just that you might be a criminal. Now you might be a TERRORIST! *fear*
no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 05:19 pm (UTC)