robertliu.com

I’ve been rearranging my finances recently. Two issues have been somewhat annoying.

1) Ryanair changes card charging policy – I literally applied for a new Visa Electron card the day before this was announced. I couldn’t believe it when I read that article. Everytime I hear some news from Ryanair, it’s always BAD news for the consumer. I really don’t want to fly with them but they do get you from A to B and overall they will still work out a bit cheaper than rivals if you know what you’re doing! Following that announcement that they will start charging fees on Visa Electron card holders, I looked at the range of prepaid Mastercards currently on offer but they’re all rather rubbish really (e.g. not free). I just hope some kind bank manager or rich businessman will launch a free prepaid Mastercard easily accessible to most people. Too bad O2′s free prepaid card is a Visa.

Anyway, I did receive my Visa Electorn card very promptly from Halifax. I might as well just keep a few hundred pounds on it in case I need to use another low cost airline that still accepts it. Though I hear the “Electron” brand will be obsolete in a year or so.

2) Santander. This banking giant, which has taken over a few UK high street banks and is the new sponsor of the Ferrari F1 team, has been a rather disappointing experience. I applied for their Santander Zero credit card because it looks like a very good card for travelling, especially since Nationwide started charging for some overseas usage. The Satander Zero credit card offers zero fees and commission on pretty much everything, hence the name. Again, I like free banking. I got the card, after 6 weeks of silence, despite the web page saying that I would hear from them within 5 days of submitting my application. Nevertheless, the card seems to work well but I’m having a huge amount of trouble using the online credit card service. The list of problems is endless including these which I wouldn’t expect from an organisation with profit figures in the multi-billions:

- Error pages are in Spanish for a UK customer base!
- The help buttons don’t work e.g. no help comes up when you are forced to change your security code so you don’t know what the restricted characters are.
- When you do get a help screen, it conflicts with information on the screen e.g. Screen says input 8 numbers. Help says input 5 numbers.

Basically, Santander and Abbey and co are making a hash of their system mergers. I’ve been sent 3 new security numbers and none of them have been much success in logging in. I’ve rung up technical support countless times already and last week they said they would call me on Monday which of course they didn’t. I think another one of their problems is that they’re incredibly slow in getting their snail mail out into the postal network. Letters are usually dated a week old which may mean I attempted to use a security number that’s already expired.

What I find insulting though is that their system makes me look like an idiot – as if I’ve input an 8 digit number wrong 50 times in a row. That’s simply not possible – I’ve been inputting user IDs and passwords 100′s of times a day, everyday of the week for the last 7 or more years and I say I make a mistake in less than 0.1% of all those attempts; Add the fact that I also work with banking systems and understand necessary security measures but Santander is OTT.

If you have patience, then I recommend the Santander Zero credit card because it’s good on paper but don’t expect much in terms of customer service or internet banking. If you can afford it, always set up a direct debit to pay off your full balance so you don’t need to worry about missed payments or rip-off interest charges!

I just realised that student loan interest rates have dropped to 0% – that’s an interest free loan from 1st Sept 2009 – 31st Aug 2010; though I guess they could change rapidly if interest rates were to suddenly rise again. Interestingly, those with student loans before 1998 have a negative interest rate! Which means that their loan amount is reducing even if they don’t pay anything back! That’s some relief considering saving rates are so low these days.

You may remember a post from me earlier this year where I was pleasantly surprised after I received an automated call from my bank. It was a standard security check but I was left wondering how much that it cost ME because I was out of the country and therefore would be charged at roaming rates from my mobile operator. Well, I’ve had a few more experiences recently which has tipped me enough to write a short(ish) rant about it.

So that first occasion was when I made a purchase on the internet and Lloyds TSB just wanted to confirm that was me, rather than block the card outright. They do this by getting a computer to dial your phone and confirm various details in such a way that both sides (the bank and the customer) can trust each other. Although they call you, so in theory there is no cost to the customer, it doesn’t work when you’re on roaming e.g. if your on holiday or business and are out of the country (even worse if out of the EU).

On a second occasion when I was in Thailand last month, Nationwide decided to block my debit card as I attempted to withdraw cash from an ATM. OK, it’s a security measure a little on the over cautious side to be safe but it adds the hassle of needing to sort it out. That means making an overseas call from my mobile phone. I fortunately had a local sim card but even with the ridiculously cheap call rates in Thailand, the call to the Nationwide card center was still long enough such that all my credit ran out on my sim before I could finish the call. That cut me off not knowing what the situation was with my card. Since I couldn’t get any cash in the first place to top up the phone and I was in the middle of an island, I had to resort to calling them back with my UK iPhone on O2 contract, which set me back at £1/minute! (That’s equivalent to 2 filling meals per minute in Thailand!)

The next day, still in Thailand, I tried to book a hotel using my Post Office Mastercard. It was declined. I tried to call the Post Office but strangely enough they don’t have 24 hour customer service centers like most banks/card issuers. So I had to wait a whole day (until it was day time in UK) so I could call them. This too was not cheap.

I also remember when I came back from Japan for a Christmas break. I started using my cards once I was back in the country. Both Nationwide and Lloyds TSB detected a change in spending behaviour and decided to block my cards. This time I was in the country, so the cost to sort it out was negligible but again there was that hassle of having to call two banks up on Christmas Eve!

So, as you can see, I’m a little bit annoyed with my banks. It’s all about them not giving me access to MY money when I ask for it. I think banks should have some internet banking facility to be able to handle security features and resolve card block issues quickly and cheaply. I really don’t see the point of call center security, confirming your name, address, date of birth. Everyone who wants to know these things can find out easily anyway but no one should know your password/PIN combinations to log into your internet banking, in theory. In the Post Office Mastercard case above, they decided to send me a letter to ask me to call the security department. I presume this was in case my card was actually stolen and so I wouldn’t know if the card was getting declined or not. I find the letter rather pointless especially when I’m on the other side of the world or if Royal Mail decides to go on one of their regular postal strikes. An email would have been much more useful as I would have been able to pick it up within 24 hours, if not immediately.

I understand it all from a security point of view, especially having worked with a few banks but it is a hassle when they make so many false calls.

A little while ago I wrote about free money. Well today I got a notice in the post that it was transferred and it was indeed in my bank account. Pretty good timing considering I’ve only got one week left in this country. Lots of work still to do and almost a party every night starting from tomorrow!

So I booked some flights yesterday using my AmEx card from Lloyds TSB. About 5 minutes later I got a call on my UK phone. I wondered what it was for a while, as I hadn’t heard it ring for over a year but realised it was a phone call and picked it up eventually. The voice on the other end was a recorded message and it said it was from my bank. It called me “Mr Robert L. I. U.”, presumably because the computer didn’t know how to pronounce my name.

I followed through a few questions quizzing me some details which I had to answer by pressing my keypad then it confirmed some transactions. It cleverly asked questions that they should know and I should know but didn’t ask me directly for it. E.g. what was the year of my birth. Press 1 for 1984, 2 for 1974…etc. It seems pretty smart and safe for the consumer and I assume that if I had selected the option that they weren’t genuine transactions they would have stopped my card and reversed those transactions. My cards have been blocked by bank’s security checks on average once per year per card. Which makes me think that my spending habit is exactly like that of a stolen credit card… Perhaps the banks should offer some other way of confirming these transactions are genuine without the inconvenience of blocking the card and waiting for me to call them! So, in some ways, I was quite happy about the call from Lloyds TSB but it did take about 5 minutes of my time (I wonder how much that cost me on my roaming plan?!).

So I’ve got just under a month left in Japan now and last week I started calling around to cancel my subscriptions etc.  Even though the Japanese themselves don’t pay the TV licence fees, I was caught out one day when I was expecting the postman but answered the door for a NHK representative who was collecting the licence fees. Apparently, you’re required by law to pay it (like in the UK with the BBC) but there aren’t any penalties for it. I didn’t know this at the time and thought it was the same as the UK system so duly signed up to it to pay about 2000 Yen a month. I am a law abiding citizen after all. Mustn’t forget about my latest farewell gift from Japan – a “Residents tax” bill which comes to an eye-watering 6 figure number

Anyway, if you’re in a similar situation and need to cancel your NHK subscription to the licence fee, just call the number on the bill. I simply said “do you speak English” and just hung on for a few minutes until they found someone that could. When they did, I was greeted by a cheerful “Hi”. Some girl that sounded very junior but knew some English. I explained my situation and she understood and said she would send me a form to fill in. Fairly nice of them to support in English without any complaints (I’ve had pretty bad experiences with Yahoo! technical support in Japan who insist on only speaking Japanese.) But I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the letter a few days later and found that the NHK people had added instructions in English to help me. I hope the “buck” here doesn’t mean a dollar tip!

This rare, 2000 Yen bank note finally circulated into my hands at yesterday’s BBQ.  It’s readily available at most Japanese banks but it doesn’t seem to be used at all. In fact, this was the first time I saw it in the 14 months I’ve been in this country and I’ve handled more than a few million Yen in that time (not that I’m rich but because it’s a cash society here and I don’t have a Japanese credit card).

You may note the Shureimon gate in Okinawa is the same one depicted on the 2000 Yen note. Here is us posing in front of it in Okinawa:

The forms for my free 12,000 Yen arrived. Now I just have to figure out how to fill it in and hope they transfer the money to me before I leave the country!

For those observant readers amongst you (yes, there are a few), you will have noticed a slight addition on the right hand side of my website. That would be the Google AdSense advert thingie-majig. Ever since I started my proper websites – proper meaning something more than “Website under construction” + many moving gif’s + ad/referral links that will make me millions – I’ve tended to avoid putting any adverts unless the advert was the subject I was writing about. No particular reason, I guess to avoid any distractions from the main subject – me!

Hehe, but I do like it when there aren’t ads everywhere. I especially hate it when a beautiful webpage loads up with the information you are waiting for and then this little flash animation just pops up in front of all the text and then you have to find that little ‘x’ to close it – even more annoying are the ones that come with sound when you don’t expect it. The BBC is a good example. No external ads. Just the information you need.

Anyway, I hope that little skyscraper ad from google doesn’t distract anyone – but please do click on them! I get paid £100 per click. Honest!