The Triumph of the Call Centre

It is my lot to have to deal, because in some ways I live a complex life, with a number of banking institutions on a regular basis. In short, I have four banks. I know, I know, it's just worked out that way and there's nothing to be done about it. Two of them, UK based, are highly competent organisations that do the stuff you need, when you need it.

I was arguing this morning with a certain local bank from the smallest emirate, who had set out to destroy my life and otherwise poke me with sharp sticks until I explode. The manager, to resolve the frustrating situation entirely of their making, called the call centre.

This is the third occasion in recent times that someone from a bank who is facing me across a desk has called the call centre to actually, you know do something. Although this act in itself presages the disintermediation of the carbon-based life form in front of me (quite satisfying really, a little like being able to gesture at them with an imperious wave and have them disappear in a puff of smoke with a sort of poofff sound), it is something of a worry.

Call centres are the modern equivalent of Roman Triremes, enormous ships packed with slaves tethered to oars and made to work by the application of copious lashes and a kettle drum. They are staffed by interns and other marginalised segments of society (out of work actors, former travel agents and record company executives), utterly disempowered and driven only by the need to recite the scripts they have been provided with. 'Is there anything else I can help you with today?' invariably ending the call where they haven't been able to help you.

They are where customers are sent to be ignored and frustrated. They are the dregs, the bowels of the earth. They are the people we shout at when we're angry with a company (usually, but not always, a bank or a telco), who take the abuse so that their management and witless marketing teams can go on behaving as if the company is at least nodding at the idea of behaving decently and with the slightest of intentions towards fulfilling some degree of what is laughingly described by corporates as 'customer service'.

So what if these IVRs, drones, bots and under-rated call handlers become the only interface to the customer? If there's no such thing as an empowered human being you can deal with? And what, then, of the 'promise of AI' in customer service?

What if we have reduced the customer experience so much that it's not really about technology developing and reaching up to equal great customer service, but customer expectations and experience being downgraded to the point where semi-evolved technology is good enough?

What then?

HSBC. The End Is - Finally - Nigh.

Customer service paradigm

Went to Spinneys the other day to buy stuff for dinner and get some cash from the ATM. The ATM she no work. The credit card she no work. I pay using my Lloyds UK card (expensive, but what to do?) and call The Bank That Likes To Say EOWRUTABABA to find out what's gone wrong.

They've blocked the cards. Without warning, without telling us. No phone call, no email, nothing. They just blocked them and then went home. No, the call centre can't unblock them. No, you can't have access to your own money. No, the branch is closed so you've got no money at all tonight. Mafi faloos, baba. Not a penny. Despite having thousands lodged in your account.

Why? Because they had asked me for a 'salary letter', the latest in a long line of insane documentary requests made in the name of 'compliance' and 'Safeguard'. Apparently, having a scan of the updated utility bill of a guy who's been your customer for 25 years makes us all safer from fraud, scams and Osama Bin Laden.

I queried the requirement for a salary letter by return email, because it strikes me as a tad silly that I - a company owner - would want to write myself a letter confirming I paid myself. In fact, I found out from a letter I got by Aramex on Monday that I could upload my trade license instead and so I did that the very same day. Tuesday they blocked the account.

Wednesday they replied to me with an email explaining I could upload a trade license in lieu of a salary letter. Bit late...

We don't have any loans, or any outstandings. We're in credit. Big time. And we can't use our money. We are, oddly enough, stony broke and cash rich at the same time. It's the last straw, I've finally had enough. This camel's back - after 25 years of abuse and idiocy - is broken.

We're closing the account. I can't trust a financial institution that would do that to its customers. God knows, I couldn't trust them to issue a cheque book, meet a cheque, make a transfer, issue a credit card, operate an ATM, manage a call centre or generally do anything else you'd expect a bank to do.

I mean, it's not like they haven't been trying to get rid of us. Oh, no, they've been trying REAL hard. Even a cursory glance at the Fake Plastic Archive gives us some idea of the treats they've been doling out over the years:

Here, back in 2008, I posted precipitately about my joy - glee, even - at opening a new account with Lloyds UAE and getting rid of HSBC. It was not to be, alas. Lloyds blew opening the account so badly that we gave up. It didn't matter, as it happened, as Lloyds UAE got taken over by HSBC anyway. So it was a case of out of the frying pan into the frying pan and over to the frying pan. It didn't end there, of course.

The howls of pain recorded on this blog alone (bear in mind it started in 2007 and I started banking with HSBC in 1993, so there's years of silent screaming out there)  are testament to a bank that's really, really getting things wrong in a big way. There is NOT ONE aspect of banking service they haven't screwed up over the years. I kid you not, not one aspect.

I have happily accused them of drooling incompetence and gleefully pointed out their legion failings. I have accused them of operating potentially the worst call centre in the world (and defy you to identify a worse one) and charged them with ineptitude of the first order - which is being mild about it.

I have glibly compared their staff to badly trained macaques of below average capability, particularly when they quietly added a requirement for an IBAN number to make transfers and failed to include that field in the onscreen transfer form - then rejected the subsequent transfer AFTER it had gone to the UK and then booked the consequent - and considerable - exchange rate loss back to me.

I have also accused them of lying in their advertising. I have stood by as they have bounced my cheques, screwed up my transfers and generally shook me up like a wasp in a bottle. I have called them useless bastards in the past and I must say I do so very much stand by that accusation.

"Why do you stay with them?" People asked me. Well, it was usually because every time I went to get shot of them, everyone told me the other banks were just as bad. Now I don't care any more. Any bank that will unilaterally cut you off from access to your own money without warning - and that because of their own desire to enforce their unjustified procedural requirements and total incompetence - is not fit to have charge of my funds.

That's it. Game over. I'm sure they'll be glad not to be getting the abuse anymore as much as I - I can faithfully report - have an enormous sense of relief at the prospect of getting rid of them forever.

I only wish I could hurt them more to make the idiots responsible for doing this feel the impotent fury, frustration and considerable inconvenience their thoughtless, pointless and draconian actions have caused us.

I'm not sure what's more remarkable - that we've stuck with them for 25 years or that they just burned a customer of 25 years' standing. As I told the snobby wee girl in the branch today, I can remember when it was the British Bank of the Middle East and there were bedu guards with Martini rifles at the door - and when the paying in form asked for your company stamp or 'chop'.

Goodbye, HSBC, you legendary screwups.

Oh noes! Here Comes COMPLIANCE!

The cold weather's here alright, but this is just silly...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was ranting on Medium the other day about the Evils of Conformity but there is a much darker, brooding evil stalking my life right now. Compliance.

As an Ancient Expat, I deal with a number of financial institutions. Some look after my company's money, some my own money. Some act in a number of ways to impair my access to my money (not that I'm giving HSBC a long, hard stare at this point, you understand) while others are entrusted with our plans for jam tomorrow.

The times they have been a-changin' for some time now. I remember walking into the Bank of Ireland in Thurles waving a wad of UAE Dirhams and asking the teller if I could please change them into Irish Punts.
'Of course,' came the answer. 'What are they?'
'They're UAE Dirhams.'
'Is that right? Is that what they look like? Well, I never!'
And they were then duly changed at the prevailing rate.
I swear it's true. Nowadays they'd have to take all my biometrics, my DNA and a snapshot of my current mind-state before they'd even talk to me.

Try telling a British financial institution - one that's happy enough to take money from overseas but clearly make no concessions to an environment that's different to the UK - that you only have a PO Box number. That even though they put up street signs on your sand road a few years ago, nobody uses them. Particularly since a lorry knocked down the sign on the corner a couple of years back and nobody's replaced it.

We need two utility bills, they trill, addressed to your home address. Except they aren't, here. They're all addressed to our PO Box. All our statements and other financial institution correspondence comes to our PO Box. Nobody uses our physical address, nobody. If you HAVE to find us, for instance to deliver Lebanese food, you get talked in from the Sheraton Sharjah.

Since my first visit to the wonders of the Gulf in 1986, I have found my way to innumerable meetings 'Past the second water tank after the Herfy on Sitteen Street, turn left and we're below the ALICO sign' although I must pause to point out that all directions given to locations in Abu Dhabi are followed by 'it's really easy', words which strike a chill of fear into my heart because they invariably mean 'You're going to die trying to find us.'

The British Embassy doesn't certify documents anymore. The Irish Office in Dubai will, for Dhs60, certify a copy of a passport but really wants an Irish connection and isn't too happy about doing my Brit passport. Getting two hours away from work to trot off getting documents legally translated and certified is, oddly enough, not very easy. I'm actually busy. And that certification of identity doesn't help with the old physical address thing, either.

It's been plaguing me. Everything I try isn't quite good enough. The electricity bill gives my area as a different area to the other document. Try as I might, I can't get 'em to understand that Muntaza and Rifa'a are the same thing. They might even be Fisht or Heera, depending on your mood and desire for geographical granularity. Any physical address given simply doesn't matter anyway. There is no standard, there is no infrastructure that relies on or requires physical addressing. And when a utility goes askew, we have to go to their office and bring the chap back to our house because they'd never find it otherwise. Oh, unless they want to cut off the supply when they suddenly and miraculously know precisely where we are. Quick aside - the other week SEWA cut us off for non-payment when we'd paid. 'Why didn't you knock first?' we asked, getting the immortal response, 'Because people hit us.'

We have an Etisalat location ID, but as far as I can tell even Etisalat doesn't use that. The wee plaque affixed to our villa displaying it is actually most used by local gas companies and AC repair men to wedge their stickers and business cards. Even the tenancy contract (legally translated and certified, natch) is no good as it only refers to me because it's in my name rather than joint names because we're in the UAE and that's just how it is here, right?

Nope.

In impotent fury, I point out our money was good enough to take in the first place. They opened the account. Why now, with each new shift in pottiness, am I faced with fresh swathes of idiocy dressed up as 'compliance'?

'Yes, yes. We understand. Nevertheless, we need two immutable and incorrigible proofs of your residence address signed in wet ink by a bearded ocelot. And then stamped, signed, sealed, translated, attested, fumigated and duly immolated.'

Bastards.

HSBC: Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Out Again

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some of you have got bored with the HSBC Whingey Posts. Why not a fun, frothy 'Shiny' post? You ask. A touch of irony, a scintilla of witty flair. Not that anger thing you do. No way, guy, that's just, like, you know, negative.

Well I can't help it. Every time I'm prepared to sue for peace, they go and do something else that makes absolutely no sense unless you are prepared to admit that the bank is being run by a row of Listerine-gargling Orangutans perched on a sapient pearwood branch lighting farts tuned by arraying their relative bottom sizes to squeeze out 'Roll Out The Barrell' every time a decision of any sort is required that will do anything other than ensure the absolute and consummate misery of their beaten-down and exhausted customers.

There is no category of banking service they have not managed to fail to perform in the time we have banked with them. Not one. Issue a cheque book, a credit card, send a draft, make a transfer. Every single aspect of banking has, at one stage or another, been royally muffed up by these vapid goons.

Imagine, then, my amazement that we managed to get new Visa cards issued with only a personal visit to the branch when our old ones were a day away from expiry, having not been replaced automatically (and I having been assured they would be). Imagine we had told the girl we were going on leave and could only accept delivery after the 24th August - and I got a long, rambling call from a drone on a heavily IP-saturated line when I was in the UK (incurring roaming charges that would melt the iciest heart) telling me my cards were ready for delivery.

'HaHa!' I laughed, and 'Fie and Fiddlesticks to boot! I'm on leave! I told you! No can do! Put that in your corporate pipe and see if you can't get a tune out of it by shoving it up the nearest Orangutan's...'

The cards arrived the other day to the office once we had returned. I was, to be honest, sore amazed. They have a sticker across the front of them giving a number to call to get a PIN number as they're 'chip and pin' cards. Called it. Did the rigmarole. It all worked perfectly.

By now I had relaxed. Oh, you know with hindsight and think me a fool. But I had indeed sighed relief and smiled at my wife. "Perhaps, my love, we have broken the spell at last" - imagine Shrek speaking ecstatically to Princess Fiona (I have spent the summer mingling with young nieces and nephew).

And then I went to peel the sticker off to find it wasn't a plastic 'easy peel' sticker that leaves no glue behind. It's a paper sticker that leaves a gluey, papery residue across the front of the whole thing. It's going to pick up fluff and dirt, go grey and grubby.

A glittering new credit card that immediately looks skanky, filthy and worn. Yes, people, this is indeed fitting...

HSBC IVR SNAFU

(Photo credit: lipjin)

HSBC has, in a moment of rare brilliance, broken its IVR. Not that it was ever an IVR to write home about in the first place, but now they've really cemented things and ensured it doesn't let you do telephone banking.

The one thing you'd want a telephone banking system to do, really. But then my expectations are probably set too high. Maybe I should expect my phone banking system to be set up to let me craunch a marmoset or perhaps provide me with philosophical inspiration. Because it sure as hell can't perform a transaction.

IVR is, in case you're interested, Interactive Voice Recognition. It's the phone system where.robotic.voices.tell.you.to.press.1.to.be.annoyed OR PRESS two.to.be.really.annoyed. It doesn't really have to be about voice, it can be keypad response. I'll never forget Rick Dees' highly amusing breast self examination hotline IVR gag: "Welcome to the Rick Dees breast self-examination hotline. Press one. Now press the other one."

Anyway, if you want to transfer money between accounts and you have multiple accounts (I do. There isn't enough room in one account to hold all the money I have, see?), you are now presented with a list of accounts to debit. Let us assume I want to transfer from my number two account to my number one account.

Foryour HSBC.UAE.Advance.Account.0...2...0...1...1..TWO...press ONE. For.other.accounts.press.two.

So you press two.

Foryour HSBC.UAE.current.account. ZERO....too...ZERO...WUN...ONE...2 press ONE.

So you press one.

Please.select.the.account.to.credit. Foryour HSBC.UAE.Savings.account.. 0..2...0...0...FIVE...0. Press ONE.

And that's it. You can't actually choose the account to credit and the account to debit. It's broken. Bust. Kaput. Borked. Non-functional. Usefully challenged. Without point. Eff all use.

So, heart heavy, you call the call centre. 

"Hello. Your IVR is broken."

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't understand you. Did you want to have your car washed, top up your credit card or craunch a marmoset?"

"No, I just want to tell someone at the bank that the new IVR is functionally broken. It won't let me transfer between accounts." I nearly say it's pining for the fjords but remember in time that you never, ever try to make a joke with the HSBC call centre or F16 strikes are called down on your house.

"I know the new IVR is complex sir and hard to understand and I appreciate your difficulty. Can I do the transfer for you?"

"But you're just reciting a script you've been given because of the high volume of complaints you're getting and that doesn't alter the fact or escalate the information to someone who could act on it that the IVR is actually functionally non-functional. Ineffective. Not fit for purpose."

"Yes. Umm. No. Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

They're taping the call. I hang up because I know what I want to say won't read well in the court transcript of my verbal abuse case.

I hate them. With a passion.

But then you know that...

Emirates ID To Function As Bank Card? Oh Horrors...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's no end to the things you can do with a smart card and the Emirates ID card is no exception. Gulf News reports today, in all seriosity, on a banking executive from Noor Bank who has commented on the announcement, made apparently on December 31st, that the Emirates ID card will be integrated with bank cards to create a single, seamless customer service experience paradigm excellence luminance entity.

Given my UAE bank has over the years managed to screw up every single service it offers, from failing to make transfers through to issuing cards, from honouring cheques through to failing to call me before blocking Visa transactions and so on through a litany of incompetence and befuddling idiocy, the very idea of integrating such a bunch of hooning nitwits with my biometric identity chills me to the marrow.

And while it may sound attractive to pool a range of services into a single smart card, the practicality of it all is that the more things you load onto a single transactional device, the more shocking the consequence of that device's failure are. It's a little like passwords - we're constantly told by security experts that we shouldn't have a single password for every service we use. Similarly, a single card with multiple functions is inherently less secure and more prone to visits from Mr Cockup.

Added to that, the ID card now requires renewal every two years, which would mean that you forsake access to your bank account for the period between expiry and renewal. And - as we all full well know - when you for some reason fall off the rails and become an exception to the system for some reason, you could well find yourself bereft not only of identity but funds as well.

This whole integration thing comes hot on the heels of the recent ATM outage in the UAE, where customers from at least two banks found themselves unable to withdraw money from ATMs but - in many cases - found their accounts debited by the amount of the failed withdrawals.

The executive quoted by GN apparently "Admitted that there could be certain issues". You can sing that, buddy...

HSBC Dubai Drooling Incompetence Special

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's been a while, hasn't it? Things have been pretty quiet on the HSBC bank Dubai front. Nothing screwed up, nothing frustrating. We've actually been managing the hideous complexities of money in/money out without putting out the welcome mat to Mr Cockup. This long period of tranquility has, however, merely been a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security, presumably to ensure that when the diabolical blow came, its impact would be more sorely felt.

So you log into internet banking with a user ID and then enter a memorable piece of information and the six digit code generated by your HSBC secure key gadget. The memorable piece of information consists of a number of pre-set daft questions like who's your favourite dog or name the fifteenth star out from Betelgeuse if you're travelling clockwise around Orion's Belt. Logging on yesterday, Sarah found the system had simply stopped letting her in at this stage of the process. No error message or any other indication that something was up, the screen just refreshed and took her back to its initial state. We checked and double checked, she was typing everything properly but it simply wasn't working.

The fear that gripped me was immediate and overwhelming. I started to gabble at her. Try standing on your head. Drink a glass of water. Anything but force me to call their call centre. But it was clear there was nothing else for it. My hand shaking, I made the call.

The usual appalling IP line, the usual strongly accented CallBot on the other end of it. Perhaps we had been mis-typing the memorable information. Had we forgotten it? It was perhaps a network problem. How the hell can typing an ID into a webpage be a network problem? You might as well blame the state of our custard. Go on, try that. It's a custard problem. Makes as much sense, doesn't it?

A number of calls follow, an hour of frustration and walking through the same script with a number of different people. Reset your memorable information, that'll do it. Okay, off we go to do that. We decide to re-enter the same memorable information as that's what Sarah's been using these last few years and she remembers it.

No. You can't do that. You can't have new memorable information that's the same as the old memorable information. So we're inputting the memorable information correctly then. Do we accept this? Yes, sir, I understand. You clearly have a custard problem and the solution is to reset your memorable information and password. Wearily, we reset the memorable information and password. Still doesn't work.

Someone at HSBC has been watching The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. You know, the scene where they give Judy Dench a job humanising the call centre people who spam the UK with constant double glazing cold calls. The CallBots are now programmed to say human-like things such as 'How are you today Mr Alexander?'

Given I have just spent twenty minutes being poked with sharp sticks by your witless colleagues and am in a state of fundamental frustration being denied access to my bank account for no apparent reason, how do you think I am today, you artless, bloated drone?

Some things never change, though. There's that same insistence on assuming you are the issue, not HSBC. 'So you appear to have forgotten your memorable information, Mr Alexander.' is part of the affirmation phase of the script. Because of the appalling quality of the line, it becomes 'Snarble afquack I am pooble pickled aardvark goosp fellate.' and has to be repeated a number of times as does, cathartically, my response that I have forgotten nothing the problem is entirely of their making and if the Americans needed any help in making their government even more broken than it currently is all they'd have to do is call into HSBC and ask for assistance with the simplest of issues.

At one state someone suggests using another browser. It's insane. A form is refusing to populate and verify correctly input information and the solution is to use another browser? After protesting, we do. Same issue. And then, three hours of forehead-slapping frustration later, someone else suggests using another PC. Which, against all possible sense works. Why? Because Sarah's downloaded a browser plug-in from some educational company a couple of days ago and HSBC's security has detected it, doesn't like it and so won't let you past its log-in screen.

No error message, no hint why it's not working. Nobody telling the call centre that a failed log-in at this stage could be triggered by another level of unseen security that blocks certain classes of browser add-in. No note anywhere on the system that log-in issues could be caused by untrusted add-ins. So the CallBots just lead you through the reset password script until you explode like a frog with a compressed air line up its backside.

Every time I fly through Heathrow, I see the HSBC ads all over the airport - you know the ones that talk about the future of the world being understood by HSBC? It's got to the point where Sarah has to restrain me, marching me ranting past the offending drivel before security pick me up.

Why not change? Because I am constantly assured the others are just as woeful. If anyone wants to earnestly recommend their UAE based bank to me in the comments, I certainly will. Up until now, nobody has ever been able to make such an unqualified recommendation. Which is, let's face it, pretty tragic...

Credit Crunch To Hit UAE

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today's press carry the comments of His Excellency Abdulaziz Al Ghurair, the Chairman of successful local bank Mashreq and also the head of the UAE Banking Federation. This is someone who speaks with remarkable authority on banking and his comments are, indeed remarkable.

Al Ghurair told local media at a roundtable yesterday he believed the UAE retail market was over-borrowed and that the planned introduction of a credit bureau in 2015 would halt lending to consumers.

"Once the credit bureau is applied there will be no lending to anybody for six to 12 months because the banks will find out who's really been borrowing and how much," He's quoted as saying in The National. "They will find out all those people who have four or five credit cards."

That's a remarkable statement - as the country staggers out of the recession and money starts to flow around the economy once again, we're seeing a clear prediction of a massive consumer credit crunch to come. And yet the need for a unified approach to lending in a country where it's commonplace to borrow from several banks because none of them share data is clear. Only with a credit bureau in place could you contemplate replacing the post dated cheque system - a system that desperately needs to be replaced.

For those not living in the UAE - a cheque here is as good as gold. If you bounce one, the bouncee can call the police - it's a criminal offence. In an odd coincidental quirk, The National today also reports on the growing number of bounced cheque offenders in Dubai jail refusing food in order to have their confinement reviewed. One bloke's inside for 25 years for bouncing cheques, which makes 15 years for murder look a bit daft, doesn't it? While that may seem a good thing (the bouncing cheque being taken seriously, not the hunger strike), it's actually a pain.

Taking out a car loan here means writing a cheque for the full amount of the loan so your creditor has the right to have you imprisoned if you default. Rentals of houses are paid in, typically, one to four cheques per annum (four being depressingly rare these days). Post-dated cheques in the UAE remain a common form of payment in a world where many banking systems are no longer using cheques at all - or phasing them out. A credit bureau would effectively remove the need for securitising loans by holding a criminal offence over people's heads.

I suppose what's most surprising about Al Ghurair's remarks is their candour. Everyone has known for years that there are no controls on bank lending. Any discussion on lending in the UAE has always carried a distinctive whiff of elephant. He makes a valid point - when banks find out how much they're all lending to the same people, there's going to be a lot of howling and gnashing of teeth - and a consequent howl of pain from those used to getting easy money from banks.

But in the long run, there would seem to be little choice. Luckily, given he's a banker, Al Ghurair seems to be on the money...

HSBC Dubai - More Trouble On The Cards?

ATM (Photo credit: Modern Relics)

I am very proud to be the owner of a school report, penned by my harried teacher back when I was eight years of age, which contains the immortal words, "Alexander's cynicism can sometimes be extremely annoying."

I can only say the intervening forty years have intensified that youthful trait, although I do try and preserve some form of occasional blind optimism, just so I can prove I would have been better off sticking to expecting the worst from those around me.

This is rarely more so the case than in my dealings with the bank that has managed to in some way fail in the provision of every banking service I have ever required of it. I'm serious. You name something a bank might do for you and I can recount a tale of how they have at least once goofed it up for me in the past two decades they have been enlivening my life.

So you can only imagine the look of dark suspicion I gave the new sparkly red card that landed on my doorstep some months ago. It has a chip thingy embedded in it and the comforting words HSBC Advance Platinum Debit Visa Paywave printed on its front. This card replaces my ATM card and also acts as a debit card - and will support 'touchless' transactions. You just wave the card at a terminal like a modern Gandalf and smiling retailers are recompensed for the good or service they are providing you.

Huzzah!

I refused to use it. Something's bound to be wrong with it. I just didn't want the inevitable headlong descent into The Call Centre after some transaction had debited the Chilean national debt from my account or given all my money to an oran utan sanctuary in Sarawak. I carried on with my battered old 'analogue' ATM card.

And then comes a missive from the bank. The old ATM cards are on the way out, mate, you'll have to use your new HSBC Advance Platinum Debit Visa Paywave card. They've got an 800 number to change or reset your PIN and so I called it (fear and loathing in my black heart) only to find the process easy, seamless and brilliantly managed.

Gulp.

Then I went to an ATM and used the card. And it worked. Perfectly. First time. I was in a state of shock, I kid you not. A lady had to ask me to move aside as I had frozen in situ and was gibbering softly to myself.

And then I realised. The new card only gives me access to one of the three accounts I hold with them. The old card gave me access to all three accounts. So I now have a new sparkly chip and PIN HSBC Advance Platinum Debit Visa Paywave card that is 33% as functional as the old one in the main purpose I hold an ATM card for - accessing my accounts using an ATM.

That discovering this provoked in me a feeling of grim satisfaction is itself something of a worry...

Groundhog Day

It's like groundhog day around here. The film, not the event.

The Central Bank has extended the deadline indefinitely for the implementation of the new Image Cheque Clearing System (ICCS), following problems implementing the system on January 1st 2011.

Meanwhile in unrelated news, the collective fat-headed nincompoopery that is my bank, HSBC, has once again seen fit to dishonour my rent cheque to my landlord. Which is precisely what they did in January last year.

On January 6th last year, I posted about both of these events. It's linked here. I pointed out the many problems people would face trying to present old cheques that lacked the security features mandated by the UAE Central Bank's implementation of the new automated cheque clearing system. I also pointed out what a communications disaster the whole thing had been. Of course there was little attempt to communicate the whole thing clearly and effectively and so, precisely a year later, the system has been once again delayed, withdrawn temporarily as everyone tries to work out how to go about honouring old cheques past the deadline set for them to be honoured.

The ICCS was first started as  project in 2005. Now, five years later, it still hasn't been implemented. Last year's confusion led to more delays and a new deadline (the original 'new cheques only' deadline was 1/1/2010) which has now been extended once again purely because nobody invested in effective communications.

Meanwhile, HSBC is saying, as it did last year, that my cheque has been dishonoured because of my signature. Last year I went to see the morons and we sat together and agreed that their scanner had squashed my signature, which is naturally some 5cm high. We rescanned my signature (I had, first, to try and copy the squashed signature, my 'old' signature before they'd scan my 'new' signature. Honest.) and then their scanner squashed my signature to look like the 'old' signature. In order to do this, of course, they required my passport copy - and wouldn't accept my National ID Card as proof of ID.

My signature is,  believe me, highly distinctive. I have been paying rent to my landlord for some ten years now. I write only two cheques every year - one to him, one to the post office. You'd have thought my bank could check the history or even telephone me before deciding to dishonour my cheque for tens of thousands of dirhams (obviously it would be an important transaction to me), but you'd think wrong. You'd assume some level of applied intelligence, care or (gasp!) initiative. And they are all sorely lacking. My bank has managed to make a mess of absolutely every aspect of banking, from issuing cards to making transfers, from providing a reliable, sensible and usable telephone and Internet banking service to honouring cheques. I am left dumbfounded as to how the hell they make money, but can only assume that totally ignoring the needs of your customers is the key to success.

You may want to suggest I find another bank. I am open to suggestions.

On Your Bike

Image via WikipediaIt’s always a delight when a new radio advertisement appears that stands out in the awful sea of half-baked drivel that punctuates the stuff you actually want to listen to. My delight is only enhanced that the latest piece of drooling, witless buffoonery originates from those admirable fellows at HSBC, the bank that likes to say 'Is there anything else I can do to help you?' at the end of calls where they have been signally useless. This is just one of many endearing habits, but I shall not allow myself to be sidetracked. Back to the radio spot.

The script goes something like this:

"In Beijing a bicycle means transport, in London it means recreation while here in Dubai it means working out in the gym. We understand the world so give us your money."

For a start, as both a consumer and business customer, it’s always reassuring that one’s bank can demonstrate a clear understanding of world bicycle usage trends. There are few aspects of the global financial services market that occupy me more.

However, the fact that the insight on offer from HSBC is clearly based on mildly egregious generalisations and actually represents absolutely no insight whatsoever may be a worry to some. For instance, some Chinese people may (I know this is hard to appreciate, but bear with me here) actually use a bicycle recreationally or may even visit a gym. Londoners certainly use bicycles in the gym and many use it to get to work. This even in the city of London where you would expect people to be somewhat more advanced than those amusingly manual slanty-eyed coolies pedal pumping across the rutted tracks over in Chinkyland.

And here in Dubai, while I’m sure we’d all like to take comfort in the image of a city packed with successful young executives working out before a day of glorious triumph over world markets in their globally aware organisations, I’m afraid it doesn’t quite do justice to reality. In fact a bicycle to me rather evokes the gentleman in a grubby shalwar khamees who comes by our dumpster every day and picks out the cardboard to add to the tottering pile strapped to the back of his bike with a threadbare bungy.

But I’m cavilling, I know. It’s just an advertisement and not meant to represent the reality of the situation at all. It’s meant to increase my awareness of my bank’s global insight and the bicycle thing is just a sort of metaphor. Or to old fashioned moralists, simply a lie. What's tragic is that it's a badly told one...

Rotten Bankers

Image via Wikipedia
I'm being predictable, I know, but there's no way on earth I'd let the news that customers are unhappy with their banks pass me by without comment.

A poll by YouGov, full details on Zawya here, has found that 20% of people are highly upset with their bank, while fully 50% of consumers would not recommend their bank to a friend. 42% cite the main reason for their dissatisfaction is the lack of priority banks give to customer service. Some 40% of people have cancelled a credit card.

I am shocked, people, deeply shocked.

Why aren't the figures higher? Nobody I know who lives in the UAE is happy with their bank. Nobody has ever been able to recommend their bank to me. The one time I bit the bullet and tried to flee ever having to deal with the hapless goons at my bank, Lloyds Jumeirah failed to open our account without a litany of stupid mistakes that finally had us giving up and sticking with the devil we, sadly, know all too well.

Actually, one reason why the figures may not be as high as I thought is that between them, the 'most used banks' are Dubai Islamic Bank and HSBC - and between them, they account for only 21% of respondents to the survey.

I'm saying nothing about DIB, you understand...

Nosy Parker

Image by José Antonio Galloso via Flickr
It was Sarah who found the list of benefits that came with our credit card. I had never really bothered, particularly given my policy of having as little to do with our bank as possible on the grounds that it's invariably bad for my health.

So when she announced that we could use our credit card to valet park for free in many of the city's shopping malls, I was not only surprised but delighted. We were to go to Mirdif City Centre in any case and so I could look forward to trying out this New Thing and 'availing my benefit'.

You might think I approached this with malign glee and the prospect of a snarky blog post in mind and if so you can award yourself a pat on the back and a banana daquiri because that's precisely what I was thinking. I could see it in my mind's eye - the uncomprehending, cow-like stare and the nervous laugh, the appalling delay while someone was telephoned to see if this was, in fact, the case. The sardonic laughter of the man who's not falling for some Brit's lame attempt to save twenty chips by trying to scam his way in.

When the man from ubiquitous valet parking company Valtrans looked at my proffered card, smiled and said, "Of course, sir!" I was flummoxed, flabbergasted and probably a little bamboozled as well. It worked like a dream and generally did what it said on the box.

So now I've got a new scheme in mind. I'm going to valet park everywhere. HSBC's paying for this and I'm going to bankrupt the bastards, Dhs20 at a time.

Brits

Image via Wikipedia

It's getting hard to move around the city these days without tripping over homeless Brits sleeping on the streets. With some of the world's best journalists on the case, ranging from the brilliant mind that is Johann Hari to the mighty BBC, everyone's been buying, seemingly unquestioningly, into a homeless Brit sleeping on the street in recession-hit Dubai story.

This one, the fifth most viewed video on the Beeb's site at the time of writing, tends to ring oddly when struck lightly with the hammer of credulity.

Now don't get me wrong. Dubai, the UAE, can be a hard place to find yourself in financial trouble. The place has always been uncompromising about debt - and has always implemented a strict policy regarding cheques which has been basically a two-strike deal: you bounce two cheques and banking facilities are withdrawn from you. And when you ever bounce one, the person you bounced it on has the right to go to the police who will treat it as a criminal case.

This has always been the fact - certainly over the time I have lived here.

You'd have to have some sympathy with a system that governs a 90% expatriate population requiring that someone remain in the country until their debts here are duly settled. Without clear extradition treaties and an effective system of managing international debtors, you'd have to manage the problem locally. And that means requiring someone to stay in the country until their debt is managed.

A lot of people got caught by the downturn and the subsequent wave of redundancies and there is no doubt at all that many suffered unexpected hardship - and that many also fled the country rather than face the unpleasant consequences of default. You can't deny that - and we're still seeing a number of people leaving here as well as a constant slew of abandoned vehicles - to the point where workers cut the tarmac out around this pair while digging up a car park!

But with families at home as well as friends, colleagues and a number of philanthropically-minded activists working to help labourers and others here (incidentally, didn't hear the BBC talking to any desperate labourers, did you?), nobody, surely, has to sleep on the street. You'll find less people sleeping on the street in the UAE than you will in Watford.

At the same time, anyone taking on significant debt here knows the law and the way in which it is applied - and if they don't I'd be amazed at their naiveté. I'm not saying the way in which debt is handled here is necessarily right - but that it is fact. You want to live and work out here? It's the deal you took on when you came out.

I think our media is all too willing to buy the debt-hit Brit sleeps in the street angle - and that this story deserved more scrutiny before it ran.

Is It Any Wonder People Have It In For Bankers?

Image by TW Collins via Flickr

The scene. A shop. Quite a noisy sports goods shop playing pump it up let’s get this fitness ting movin’ music. Sarah is trying to get me to make the decision between the black trainers with the black stripe and the black trainers with the pink stripe for her. The mobile rings.


“Hello, Alexander McNabb.”

“Hello?”

“Hello!”

“Hello.”

“What do you want?”

“Is this Alexander McNabb?”

“Yes, it is.”

“This is HSBC customer service.”

“And?”

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“I’m calling regarding the issue you had with a transfer. You raised a customer support issue with Internet banking.”

“Right...”

“I need to ask you some security questions.”

“Okay.”

“What accounts do you hold with us?”
(told her, not telling you. Not that I don’t trust y’all, ye understand)

“What is your current balance?”

“I have not got the faintest idea. Not a clue.”

“Well, what was the last transaction on your account?”

“I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”

*desperately* “What is your date of birth?”

“Fried eggs and ham.”

“Thank you. You had an issue with Internet banking. I’m just calling to help you.”

“What issue? I don’t remember an issue? When?”

“About ten days ago. You had an issue with IBAN numbers.”

“Oh, Lord, yes! I remember now! You require an IBAN number on transfers to the UK but there’s no field specifying that you need an IBAN number on the online form.”

“We now require an IBAN number on transfers to the UK. You can insert this in the ‘comments’ field in the online transfer form.”

“I know that now. I had to call your call centre to find out and then I asked the call centre person to escalate the fact that there’s not actually a field in the form that requests an IBAN number. That was my problem, you see? If you require a critical piece of information to complete a process, you actually need to ask people to insert that information in an appropriate field, marked, for instance, ‘IBAN NUMBER:’.”

“Yes. You have to put it in the comments box on the form.”

“But that’s my issue! How am I supposed to know that I need to put the IBAN number in at all? By osmosis? By a process of miraculous information transfer? Holes opening in the space-time continuum? How simple is it to put a field on the form that says: IBAN NUMBER:?”

“I apologise, but that is not possible at this time.”

“Oh come on! Of course it’s possible! A badly trained macaque of below average capability could add a field to an HTML page in less than ten minutes. Instead, they got you – a call centre operative with about as much chance of influencing any policy decision regarding your bank’s woeful inability to make its systems even marginally fit for purpose as I have of winning the UK national lottery – to call me and say sorry but it’s broken and we’re not going to fix it.”

“I do apologise. I can put a request to escalate this with Internet banking.”

“They pushed the whole issue down to you! Are you going to escalate it to them so that they can push it back down to you so that you can call me to tell me you’re sorry that the issue about the issue regarding the problem I had is still an issue?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s face it, you have absolutely no ability to escalate any issue whatsoever, do you? All you’re going to do is repeat sorry until I stop shouting, aren’t you?”

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t we end the call right here? I don’t have to be rude to you and you don’t have to listen to a rude and angry customer and we can both get on with our lives without the irritation and frustration of this call and your Internet banking form will continue to lack a simple input field requesting information that is crucial to the process in question.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Cheque this out...

Image via Wikipedia

The new chequebook requirement is not just on the part of HSBC, as my landlord’s man thought happily last night when I passed over my rent in cash to him. He was shocked to hear me tell him that every bank in the UAE is likely to start rejecting ‘old’ cheques and he had no idea at all how to tell the difference between ‘old’ and ‘new’ cheques. He is holding several ‘old’ cheques as PDCs preparatory to depositing them when the rents on other properties come due – I wonder how many other landlords are in a similar position.

In my humble opinion, this whole sorry episode is a case study in totally inadequate communications, a demonstration of breathtaking arrogance from banks and a clear sign that the UAE’s banks have a huge leap forward to make in customer service and communication. I might be overdoing it, but I doubt it: this is what I do for a living – communications. I might be useless at it, I might not. But I have never seen it so badly mismanaged in my life – and I have been working in the Middle East for over twenty years now.

All UAE banks have to upgrade their cheques to conform to new guidelines mandated by the UAE Central Bank and so there is a very real danger that the vast majority of cheques held by people out there are now duds. And that the majority of cheque books out there are useless.
The UAE is a society where a cheque was previously regarded as ‘as good as cash’ because of the Central Bank’s ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy. In the UAE, if you bounce a cheque, the person you have issued the cheque to can call the police and file a case against you and if you bounce a cheque twice, the Central Bank can (and, I hear, will) withdraw your access to banking services.

This has been an amazing deterrent to any form of ‘bad cheque’ and, in fact, there are no cheque guarantee cards here. A cheque is a man’s word and bond and respected as such.

The new guidelines from the Central Bank have been triggered by the introduction of a new automated clearing system, ICCS. This demands banks take extra precautions before scanning cheques and sending them to the Central Bank for clearing, hence the mandated ‘more secure’ cheque books.

HSBC and other banks started to refuse cheques without the new features on the 1st January 2010. I have no record of HSBC contacting me to advise me of this – I did, incidentally, search through the 33 junk and phishing emails that purported to come from HSBC that I have received since November last year, but they are all fakes. HSBC has not responded to my post yesterday asserting that the bank had not effectively communicated the vitally important new changes to me.

There is some confusion regarding PDCs. According to Mashreq’s FAQ:
Retail and corporate customers may have already collected cheques which do not comply with cheque security features prior to this deadline. In view of this, collecting banks will accept such deposits and process them as usual in ICCS till 31/07/2010. Any PDCs dated beyond 31/07/2010 must be lodged with Banks before 31/12/2009 for collection on the due date.

But HSBC’s FAQ is a little more clear (my bold):
Post dated cheques without the security features, which have been collected by customers prior to 31 December 2009, can be accepted until 31 July 2010. After this date no cheque without the security feature will be accepted.

Post dated cheques and discounted cheques deposited in advance without the security feature and already held by banks for any date will not be affected by this rule; however HSBC will not accept any new cheques without the security features post 01 January 2010.

In other words, PDCs will only be honoured if the bank already held them prior to 31/12/2009 – think about it, a cheque dated now and lodged now is just a ‘new cheque without the security features’, no?

I haven’t seen any news stories or advertisements about this massive change to the banking system. If other banks have contacted their customers, well and good – but nobody I have spoken to has been aware of this whole issue at all. I should point out that some people commenting to the last post I put up on this issue do say they were made aware – although some said they received emails as late as 28/12/2009.

By the way – as far as I can see, the ICCS rollout from the Central Bank has been done with remarkable care and some two years of trials, dry runs and suchlike. I remain amazed that two years down the line, banks seem singularly unprepared to meet the challenges of the rollout.

There has been no concerted awareness campaign on the part of the banks to ensure that customers know about this issue. I can gather evidence of, at best, cursory and almost derisory attempts at communicating what’s going on (mounting a FAQ on your website is not communicating with your public). And that strikes me as verging on insane – let alone highly insecure – given that this move potentially invalidates every cheque in the UAE that does not conform to a new standard that most people are unaware of.

So what does this all mean? Try this lot:

• PDCs held by landlords in the UAE that have not yet been lodged or discounted with a bank are likely not to be honoured by banks. They are potentially worthless documents as of 1/1/2010.
  

• Anybody issuing a cheque using the old style cheque book is potentially defrauding the person they are presenting the cheque to. And anyone accepting such a cheque (do you know what the new ones look like? HmmMMM?) is likely to have it bounced by the bank.
  

• Any payments, for instance mortgage payments, car loans or PDCs issued by businesses against scheduled payments, may well (probably will) bounce.
  

• Anyone who doesn’t know the difference between the ‘new’ cheques and the ‘old’ cheques issued by every UAE bank is in danger of accepting a dud cheque.
  

• The criminally minded punter can now have a field day – imagine selling someone some ACs, a fridge or suchlike. By the time the cheque has gone ‘thud’, what are the chances you’ll be able to find yer man? Yeah, zero.
  

• Cheques in the UAE are no longer as good as cash. They’re as good as junk until someone gets their finger out and clearly communicates what the hell is going on here. And that means, collectively, the banks that have so far stayed resolutely silent need to start taking responsibility.
  

Incidentally, the cheque that HSBC bounced on my landlord (a cheque for tens of thousands of Dirhams returned without even making a call to me, of course) came back marked as 'Irregular Signature'.

Cheque Book Fraud

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I suppose I should be angry that HSBC failed to communicate the changes in cheque book requirements with me, but I’m not – merely resigned. I had to find out about it from someone on Twitter in the end.

I should equally, I’m sure, be angry that the bank dishonoured a post dated cheque I had previously given to my landlord, doing so, as usual, without attempting to contact and inform me. But I’m not. I’m just resigned to the lack of communication or basic care for the customer.

The UAE’s central bank has made changes to the way it handles cheques and has therefore made it a requirement that cheques should have an additional level of security, including a tamper-evident watermark. These have been added to new cheque books and banks are no longer accepting cheques made out using old style cheque books.

What amazes me is that a bank could actually contemplate making such a move without any attempt to communicate this effectively to its customers. I consider myself to be unusually contactable – I am quite an online person and you can get in touch with me by telephone, mobile, SMS, fax, email, Twitter or Facebook. You could even leave a comment on the blog. In fact, HSBC has frequently contacted me using SMS, typically to let me know about a discount I can avail at Joy Alukkas Jewellery when I use my HSBC card. Strange they didn’t think of using the same medium, or in fact any medium of communication, to let me know they were about to dishonour my cheque.

But I’m not angry about that. Just resigned.

They could even have bothered to write to me. To enclose a new cheque book, for instance, or at least a letter explaining what was happening and how it would affect me. They could have put a mandatory screen up on the Internet banking system that would have made me click on ‘NO I don’t want the new cheque book’ or ‘YES please send me a new cheque book now in plenty of time before the changes take place.’ That wouldn’t have cost them a penny but would have avoided my landlord getting a bounced cheque. They could even have sent an email using their woeful little Internet banking messaging system, but records show no such communication since November which is as far as records go back.

Given that I am a busy little bee with plenty more important things to do than muck about with this stuff, they could have used several routes to get through to me and let me know I had to act and that there would be consequences attendant on my inaction. They could have written to me, put a screen on Internet Banking AND sent me a letter, SMSed me and emailed me/messaged me via their Internet Banking service. All of them. Just to make sure I knew what was happening. They did none of them. Not one.

It’s not a time thing, either. HSBC has had plenty of time to inform customers of the changes and prepare them for the new system. The first phase of testing ICCS, which appears to have been a thoroughly well managed rollout by the Central Bank, took place in July 2006. HSBC has known for over two years that the new system was to be implemented and therefore has had two years to prepare its customers for the new security requirements. As the global local bank, it would have had experience from other markets of earlier implementations of Image based clearing, surely?

In fact, the whole thing has been a world class shambles, managed with the usual complete disregard for the customer and leveraging the communication skills of a deep frozen wombat.

But what makes me angry, because yes, I am angry, is that my landlord is a decent man but a very sick one and he didn’t need to have to deal with a bounced cheque. That cheque was written and issued in good faith, drawn on the bank account that I am paying the bank to manage on my behalf and returned without any reference whatsoever to the account holder. What’s more, the cheque was written on the cheque book issued to me for that very purpose by the bank – the very same bank that had previously taken to bouncing my cheques because it claimed my signature had changed (it hasn’t). The very same bank that I visited personally in August last year to sort out that whole sorry mess and who did not even think to let me know then and there that I would need a new cheque book. Although they must, at that time, have known that these changes were taking place as they'd been working on them for fully two years since full trials of the new system had taken place.

The bank has at no time communicated to me the requirement for a new cheque book or that it was going to start unilaterally dishonouring my issued cheques for reasons that were completely unknown to me.

Bankers.

A Bunch of Bankers

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

My bank has a new toy. It’s an automated calling system that puts a call in to me if one of our three joint accounts we hold becomes overdrawn. I get a call that then places me on hold until someone at the call centre becomes free and picks up the line.

So I, the ‘customer’, am made to hang around like a jerk on the end of a line until they can find the time to talk to me?

Is this what they call customer service?

And then I get dopey the call centre clot telling me that my account is Dhs50 overdrawn and asking when can I ‘normalise the situation’. Needless to say, I point out to the clot on the line, the other two accounts are significantly in funds, which you’d have seen if you cared enough about your ‘Status’ customers to give even a cursory glance at the account status before putting calls in to them on a Friday morning about insignificant overdrafts.

Taking that quick look at the account status before placing the call would have taken a great deal less of the bank’s time and effort than the FIVE calls I got from them on Friday regarding the same issue. It would also have avoided a lot of unpleasantness for their call centre staff. One of them, deliciously, called after I had authorised a transfer from another account to restore the balance of the account that was causing so much apparent heartache. ‘Oh, you see the system doesn’t update properly’ she told me just before I let her have it.

I did tell her it wasn’t personal and I didn’t see why she had to apologise to me – it was the bank’s issue and I wanted her to escalate my complaint. She hasn’t, of course, but I have.

The world’s local bank? HSBC? The biggest bunch of numpties I have ever dealt with, they continue to blight my life with every single contact I have with them. The only thing you can rely on is their constant failure to provide even the most basic level of service and banking facilities without embroiling their customer in needless heartache, anger and frustration.

Why don’t I move? Because last year I finally snapped and went to Lloyds only to find they couldn’t even open an account without screwing it up. As so many people have told me – they’re each one worse than the other.

No wonder the useless bastards all needed bailed out...

Bank

You’ve issued me with a new Visa card. Can I ask why? The old one doesn’t expire for two years.
You asked for it.

I didn’t.
It’s the new black card.

So’s the old one.
It’s because your wife’s card was taken by the ATM.

No it’s not. Her card’s been replaced, you agreed not to replace mine. And that was months ago.
Pause. It’s a process.

It’s a what?
A process. By the system. It’s the system.

The system?
Yes. That’s it. The System.

Is this because of the security issues you've been having?
No. No. Not possible. I don't know. Yes, it's not. I have to get someone to call you back. Overload. Overload. My mind is going. Dave? Dave? I don't believe you wanted to do that Daaave....

I followed the complaints procedure and faxed a complaint form to my bank after Dubai’s RTA took Dhs750 from me in error and refused to refund it. Over three months later, the bank hasn’t responded.

Almost a month ago, the same bank failed to make a transfer to the UK in good order. The consequence was a botched transfer and an exchange loss, charged for me for some reason, of some Dhs 1200.

Two weeks ago I was suddenly issued with a new visa card, although my old one hadn’t expired. It has a new security number. Concerned, as they have messed up standing payments on the card before and we have, after all, just been asked to change all our PINs because of a security issue, I called the bank to ask them to confirm why they had issued a new card. The conversation above (only the last line is makety-uppity, BTW), is just one of many that ended with me insisting that someone, anyone who could take responsibility and tell me why I had a new card that I didn’t want or need, call me back.

Silence.

For a month I have been leaving messages on the answering machine of my ‘Status’ account manager. For a month I have been leaving urgent messages with the call centre to have someone, anyone call me back to discuss the above. They won’t give me any other telephone number for the bank.

This Saturday I am going to go to HSBC in Bur Dubai in person. Expect to hear about the consequences in Gulf News and other leading daily newspapers. I'll be 'British expatriate A.M.' in case you want to be sure it's me. I’d appreciate if you could all start some sort of ‘Free McNabb’ campaign as soon as the stories break. Thanks.

*Update. We blew this Saturday, so it'll have to be next. The best laid plans of mice and men...

Warned

I probably wasn't the only British expatriate puzzled by the news that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office had raised its terror warning status for the UAE to 'High' today.

You see, the FCO is a little more, well, British than, say, the Americans, who'll issue an extreme travel warning for Belgium on news that someone in Kamchatka has been annoyed by an ingrown toenail. The Brits tend take the old fashioned 'Listen, chaps, there's an awful lot of shooting in Gaza so we suggest any British nationals there may like to wear a hat if venturing out' type of approach to travel warnings.

So when the dusty old crusties at the FCO say they're raising the level to 'high', we're either up a certain creek without a certain implement, or the UK has turned into a nation of milk-sops and scaredy-cats. Obviously, as a good old fashioned expat, one has to believe the latter.

But now comes the news, the evening of the day in which the warning broke, that the UK has frozen the assets of Bank Melli Iran - and is encouraging other European nations to follow suit. You have to wonder if the warning is linked to fears of reprisals - and the timing of the warning and the asset freezing move do tend to point to a high level of integration and forward planning.

But if the two are linked, it's the association I don't like. "We're going to freeze the assets of one of their banks so you can expect terror as a response - because their only response is and ever can be terror", is what they appear to be telling us. The conditioning inherent in the messaging is something that I confess myself uncomfortable with.

Why is it so important to demonise Iran in this way?

Answers on a postcard...