Wishing the ground would open up…

Ever been in a situation where you wish the ground would just open and swallow you up… I have – about an hour ago infact…

I had to do a quick trip to the shops to get some last minute bits for my mum’s 60th ‘do’ tonight but when I went to pay – at the very full till with a queue of at least a million behind me – my card was rejected!!! WTF…

Now I KNOW there’s money in there – and the reason I know this is that it was refused last night in a resaturant too and when I phoned up the bank to find out why I was told that it was ‘just a bit of extra security’ and ‘not to worry about it’. Well if that’s the case then why in god’s name is it happeneing again today? (Actually it was not refused as such – it just came up with a request for authorisation but rather than cause a delay I just paid with another card.)

At least last night in the restaurant though it was quiet… Not today – oohh noooo.. today it was bloody heaving in the shop and I had to stand there for 15 sodding minutes while the assistant fannied around with my card before then asking me to go to the cash point and pay with proper money!!! How f***ing humiliating. I can never EVER go in there again. I left red-faced with embarassement feeling like a criminal – nice way to spend your lunchbreak eh?

Anyway, so I called the bank again and was told that the reason it was refused this time was that it was still waiting on the authorisation request activated last night… Apparently once these ‘requests’ are in the system the only way to get your card working again is to phone up the fraud unit and get it cleared.  Well ok – that’s no problem and at least I now know what to do but it would have been really useful if the stupid cow on the phone last night would have let me into that little secret!

Customer services in my bank obviously leaves a HELL of a lot to be desired!!!!