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...

How To Drool A Frog - More Weird And Wacky Searches

(Photo credit: thms.nl)

I occasionally dip into Sitemeter, the natty little analytics widget I don't use very much, to see what people have been searching to land themselves on this mouldy sub-corner of the Interwebs. I took such a dip today because I couldn't really get into the swing of writing for a while and decided to play a bit until the fancy once more took me to recommence my story of The Simple Irish Farmer, which is my WIP of choice.

I found that not a few people are clearly concerned about whether or not they put plastic in Subway bread - in fact thousands of them have Googled the topic and found themselves reading my take on the whole thing - their searches for truth leading them here. I find it very odd that a silly little blog like this can not only rank so high in search, but draw so many searchers for both this and the Tim Horton's French Vanilla Coffee is junk post. I am similarly pleased to say I have offered succour to thousands of punters who have been tearing their hair out at Chuck Norris the Trackpad on their Samsung S5 Ultrabooks.

Similarly, Sri Lanka Gems is a popular search term - and to my mild shock, my post about the gem and spice sales scams of Sri Lanka is number six result on Google. In the world. I mean, how mad is that? "Gemstones Sri Lanka" gets the same result, which I guess has Klout running around saying I'm influential about gemstones. A subject about which - I hasten to add - I am pretty much utterly bereft of knowledge let alone authority. A similar mind-boggling search anomaly is to be found in the phrase, "where did Nokia go wrong" which features this post on the first page of search results. And that's bonkers. Truly.

Somebody in Pakistan searched the Interwebs for the interesting-sounding "picrs sixi porn salik 17 21" which just led him here, which I am willing to wager a considerable sum was not the result he had in mind. Or even she, come to think of it. Apparently, online onanistic fortune favours the literate. And another rube got here by Googling "marage night fack movie". Were they after a fake movie or a fu... oh, never mind...

Search "online onanistic fortune". It's mine, all mine, precioussss...

Someone else was looking for a cartoon character curry - searching for "tom and jerry masalas", presumably to accompany a nice Daffy Duck Dosa. The searcher, rather worryingly based at Nokia's corporate headquarters over in Finland, got here instead. I say rather worryingly because you'd think they'd have a future to concern themselves about rather than playing about on Google looking for silly curries.

Another person arrived at La Blog by Googling "salmon farming in saudi arabia".

It's Yemen, dunce.

Then there are the surreal. I mean what did you think you'd get when you slammed "www.indianheroinafack blogspat.com" into Google? Blogspat. Love it. Interestingly, the 'perp' works for the Miller Brewing Company in Wisconsin, Milwaukee and was using a crappy old Nokia 5.0 browser. They got this for their troubles...

My favourite of this particular batch was the search term 'How to drool a frog' which really makes the mind boggle just a tad, but led its searcher to this post about HSBC's drooling incompetence. Which wasn't, I'm sure, what they were after. And no thank you, I don't want to know what they were actually looking for...

Any of them, come to think of it.

The Wild Wonders of Wadi Wurayah

Wot you lookin' at, fat 'ead?

Wadi Wurayah, or Wurrayah or however you want to spell it, has long been a hidden gem in the UAE's formerly glorious wadi systems. Uniquely, Wurayah's waters flowed all year round, a waterfall that sloshed around in a bowl at the top before cascading down to a big pool below. You could sit in the 'punchbowl' and look out to the wadi snaking away below you or just lie back and admire the flat, blue sky.

It used to be reached through some 18 Km of wadi tracks wending from the main Khor Fakkan-Dibba road. There was a wrecked light aeroplane you turned left at. Each year there was less and less wreck until it wasn't unusual - indeed this became true of many wadi routes - to bump into lost seekers of the wadi clutching copies of Dariush Zandi's 'Offroad in the Emirates'. Published by Motivate, the volume was kept on sale a tad longer than perhaps was wise, so as the wadis changed and so did landmarks, the book became more and more misleading. Zandi's direction to turn left at the wreck lost its charm when there was no longer a wreck, you see...

The 18 Km of heavy going along rocky wadi tracks deterred the vast majority of people, so Wurayah was a haven of peace, tranquility and unspoiled natural beauty. That all changed in a flash when they built a road to it. As I pointed out in this post noting 7Days' 'Save Wadi Wurayah' campaign back in 2011, the rocks turned into something from LA Ink overnight, the wadi became choked with blue plastic bags, cans and broken glass. And I found a bloke running a dirty, clattering generator to power the light bulb hung on a stick outside his tent. All this was back in the '90s, mind...

Last year, the government of Fujairah moved to cement the various conservation efforts being made around Wurayah and declared it off-limits to the public. The UAE's first National Park, Wadi Wurayah National Park, was declared and Wadi Wurayah is now recovering. It had a lot to recover from, I can tell you.

Now the Emirates Wildlife Society (EWS WWF is part of the global World Wildlife Fund) has announced the official launch of a water research and learning programme, designed to give volunteers a five-day insight into the unique ecosystem at Warayah. The scheme is funded by WWF, Earthwatch, the Government of Fujairah and HSBC. In return, their work contributes to a long term water monitoring program being implemented at Warayah.

It's a far cry from the remote spot we used to noodle out to for balmy winter camps and splashing around in cool pools - but if you'd seen the mess people made of it when it opened up, you'd agree no public access is preferable to devastating the place through thoughtlessness and criminal negligence.

And at least they didn't dump a hotel on it, like they did at Zighi Beach, another remote camping spot made ideal for intrepid wadi bashers by a precipitous mountain track that zig zagged up the mountainside. Great one for teachers that: the zig zag Zighi track is brought to you by the letter zee.

And if you really DO want to get into Warayah, you can just hit up the EWS WWF using this here handy link and make yourself useful. How cool is that?

Sharjah Traffic Survey Masterplan Scheme Thingy Shock Horror

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We're about halfway through Sharjah's traffic survey, a project started in September and slated for completion in November. Traffic counters have been spotted on roundabouts, while we are told that thousands of residents will be surveyed with a number of different methodologies, including being asked questions while we sit in traffic.

Irony alert.

The survey aims to find out what we really want from transport. The answer has already been identified for us as more public transport, but we've got to be asked first.

Now comes the news that controversial consultancy AECOM has bagged a $4 million contract to draw up a 'master plan' for Sharjah's transportation network, to be ready by 2015. Amongst other things, AECOM will work on 'developing a scheme appraisal framework', whatever that is. Apparently the study will also lead to 'fostering modal shift towards public transport and collective modes.'

Which means more public transport, no? It's always nice to see a study of a problem that sets out already having identified the solution. It's so much more comforting that way.

Mind you, it's funny they're going to all this effort when a few hours looking at Nokia's brilliant Here Maps mobile app could tell them what we all know - the traffic overlay shows traffic density at near real-time, with free roads painted green, cloggy roads orange and jams outlined in a neat red. You can watch the morning developing quite nicely on your mobile in the comfort of your stationary car.

All roads east and south are routinely screwed, turning nicely red as the morning develops. The Road Formerly Known As The Emirates Road is a car park from about 6am onwards, stretching from the infamous National Paints (remember that 'it'll be done in April'? Yeah, right) all the way back to the airport road and beyond towards Ajman. The airport road bungs up, too - a combination of traffic leaving for the backed-up TRFKATER and the blinding sunrise on that wee bend before the university conspiring to cause it all to gum up back to Culture Roundabout.

Beirut's totally banjaxed, despite Dubai's sneaky Dhs4 collecting mechanism, while Al Wahda/Ittihad goes the same way (traffic backs up by the Faisal Street and Al Khan turnoffs first) from about 5.30am. Everyone hoys off from about 7am to take their kids to school so all roads East clog up very nicely thank you, with Anjads peeping and flailing at people as they try to smooth the way through key roundabouts of which Sharjah has many (and they're all called squares. Figure.).

The schools area - because zoning all schools together in an area with limited access is a clever idea - becomes a snarling mass of jostling entitlement. The Middle Road gums up from the schools area towards the city and again where it joins the Mileiha Road, because some genius at some time in recent history decided not to put in an intersection at the junction of two relatively new and planned major arterial roads, but instead plonk a chaos-inducing traffic light there instead.

This is all repeated, in reverse, in the evening, with TRFKATER south blocking up while the Northern lane jam stretches back to Mirdiff City Centre. The Middle Road access to TRFKATER then backs up.  Ittihad blocks up back to Garhoud and Nahda through Al Arouba Street just gets chicken oriental from about 4pm onwards. Basically, a lot of very unhappy and frustrated people gather and try to make themselves feel better by upsetting other people.

And it's all getting worse as we move back into mega-project announcing mode.

There we go, job done. No, no thanks necessary. This here matchbox contains your scheme appraisal framework. You just have to remember never to open it or it'll stop working. You can just pop that $4 million in my HSBC account and they'll somehow conspire to lose it or turn it into cat litter or something.

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...

That Was The ArabNet That Was

(Photo credit: carrierdetect)

It's been a hectic week, hence the lack of posts. The ArabNet Dubai Digital Summit sucked down more time than I'd ever have thought it was going to - but what a time it's been. The week's flown by in a whirlwind of panels, chatting, eager startups and blethering about all things online.

Not even HSBC's decision to mount an insane war against their SME customers, reported upon excellently by the Al Arabiya English website, tempted me to post. Truth be told, there just wasn't the time and anyway, what could be possibly said that would make any sort of sense of a bank unilaterally shutting down business accounts in the United Arab Emirates with just 60 days' notice - just before the summer and Ramadan coincide to ensure 60 days' notice is insufficient?

Even HSBC's assertion that it 'remains committed to the SME market' wasn't enough to break the ArabNet spell. Although now looking back on the story that comment still provokes wide-eyed astonishment. We've wiped out the Marsh Arabs but remain committed to all indigenous peoples. Right.

I got to have a little gentle fun with banks myself at the ArabNet banking solutions panel, when Graham from Radical outlined some of the cool stuff his company had been doing with banks internationally and the very brave Pedtro from Emirates NBD took to the stage to speak for the Middle East's own banks. Perhaps starting the panel with the assertion that all Middle East banks are rubbish wasn't terribly PC of me (I realised my introduction to the topic had turned into a spittle-flecked rant only when the audience started to turn into a mob hefting burning brands and demanding to march on the monster), but I thought if we could all agree that basic principle, we could then move on and not spend an hour throwing custard tarts at Pedro.

And that's the way it worked out, generally - but I came away from the session with the feeling that people like Pedro are fighting against legacy systems and legacy-minded management, while banks in other parts of the world - leaner, meaner and generally more competitive - are providing some really smart digital services. You wonder what's holding us back and then something like HSBC vs SME happens and you realise that yes, it is pretty nigh hopeless.

I enjoyed many of the talks and panels I attended at ArabNet, there were few 'duffers' in the mix which was a blessing - and with three tracks on the go, rare was the moment when something interesting wasn't happening somewhere. Skills marketplace Nabbesh was raising money on startup crowd investing platform Eureeca, Wally got Dhs 1.5 million funding for its blisteringly smart expenses tracking app (it scans receipts and lets you track locations, venues, expenditures and the like), Restronaut took everyone out for dinner (the latest brain-child of Make Business Hub founder Leith Matthews) and private car booking service Careem offered everyone a free ride. There was a lot of stuff going on, I can tell you.

I had the dubious honour of being the last speaker at ArabNet Dubai and so was surprised to find a packed room in front of me - that's a testament to the engagement and commitment of the audience at the event. There were a few grumbles of 'three days is too long' but I'm not so sure, myself. It wasn't a stretched out agenda by any means. Anyway, I spent fifteen minutes gibbering and railing at the audience in tongues, the usual shamanistic display of erratic behaviour. And then I got to lead a panel on women's content and branded content. 

With one client and three publishers on the panel, it was always going to be hard to get a good challenging debate moving - and the publishers were determined not to have the fight I was so keen to goad them into, so the panel was a tad tamer than I'm used to. Tragically, we didn't have the Twitterfall displayed on the stage monitors, so couldn't see the howls of outrage taking place on the projected screen behind us. As the panelists talked about why marketing managers didn't understand women in the region and why women's content was Chanel and handbags, a furious cry rose from the significant female element in the audience who felt women were, well, worth more than that. I couldn't see it and so the opportunity to square the circle between audience and panel was lost.

And then, in a trice, it was over. The developers' awards saw Lebanon taking the trophy and a couple of hours later, the Atlantis conference centre was back to being a vast expanse of strange nautical primary colours and Dubai was filled with little pockets of partying geeks and, no doubt, a very relieved and exhausted ArabNet team.

See you there next year!

Confession: Spot On was an ArabNet partner

HSBC Predicts Internet Banking Growth. Shock Horror.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In an interview with Gulf News, an executive from HSBC has predicted a rising trend in the adoption of technology. This is the kind of insight we have come to expect from the bank that knows in Beijing bicycles are a mode of transport, while in Dubai they're used in the gym.

The interview goes on to tell us that mobile technology adoption is on the rise, while m-commerce "is good news for consumers who will experience the benefits of greater convenience and ease of access."

Astounding. It's like Paulo Coelho's entire body of work squeezed into a single, punchy sentence. I could feel my life changing as I read that. I had never before considered the possibility that mobile commerce would allow greater convenience and ease of access. It's one of those moments, you know the ones when the world suddenly seems, well, a little different. Something has shifted. Something has changed.

Apparently HSBC has a mobile banking solution, which was launched on the UAE Apple app store in November 2011. It's also available on Android and BlackBerry. That's news to me, but I'm just one of their customers so see no reason why I would be told. The application, developed by Montise, allows account access, balance, movement of funds between accounts and bill payments. All you need is your Internet banking PIN, password, memorable information and your HSBC Secure Key (which is a small hardware device designed to make Internet banking more frustrating than it need be).

HSBC has apparently conducted research on the factors inhibiting the adoption of Internet banking. While that research is alluded to in Gulf News' piece, the results are not. We are told merely that a third of HSBC's customers are using Internet banking, while half of those are inactive.

I'm one of the inactive ones. I couldn't remember all the usernames and passwords for phone banking and Internet banking both. Username, password, the sequenced genome of a pipistrelle bat, six digit PIN, memorable information, ten digit phone banking identification matrix, internal diameter of a six tonne bow thruster, date of birth, the names of six different violent mammals, secure key entry. I don't even have a secure key. Sarah does. She loathes it with a passion. I wonder if perhaps the sheer richness and complexity of information required to access these services would not count perhaps as one of the inhibitors? My real bank just wants an Internet banking account number and password and hey presto, I'm in.

The study, apparently, revealed that it was important for HSBC to raise awareness about the benefits of online banking.

I can't wait.

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...

Strange Searches

Strange (Photo credit: KellBailey)

It's been a while since I last did this. Every now and then I amuse myself by taking a look at some of the search phrases that have brought people to this dusty corner of the interwebs. Along with the usual round of sensible landings there are always some oddities.

This harmless activity is made possible by a little doohickey called SiteMeter, which gives deeper metrics than Google Analytics. If anyone thought they were truly anonymous on the Internet, a few minutes with SiteMeter usually puts them right - I know your IP, your landing page, your leaving page, where you came from to get here, your OS and lots of other stuff.

So behave and wipe your feet next time.

Anyway. Strange searches.

Nude men wearing plastic macs 
This was a strong start. Quite why they landed here I don't know. But I can only imagine their disappointment must have been a joy to see. Equally, I can't tell how someone landed here from Bing having searched, worryingly, for "watertank sensory deprivation experiment"!!!

Fake droopy nuts 
Quite a lot of 'fake' searches lead here, but this one could hardly have expected a blog post about brainstorming a coated nut brand. The party must have been a hoot when Lou finally got his hands on that little speciality joke item.

Lick an ax murderer from crawley 
The post was a howl of rage at HSBC's famously woeful call centre, but you can only hope that someone wanted to find the article again and found that phrase more memorable than the blog's name. Because if that wasn't the case, there's someone out there who wants to lick axe murderers from Crawley. And that's pretty strange, if you ask me.

Download alexander mcnabb 
Most people I know go to considerable effort to avoid me, which can be difficult at times, I agree. As for downloading me, I haven't uploaded yet, so you'll have to wait...

Why people go mad in UAE during the national day 
Why, indeed? I have frequently commented that this is the only place in the Middle East in the last three years where the people have taken to the streets - in support of the government and nation.

Literary agents of Dubai 
elf publishing in emirates 
Both of these searches are doomed to failure - because there are as many literary agents in Dubai as there are elves in the UAE publishing industry.

louisbouiton fake shoes dubai souks 
There's nothing like someone who can't spell the brand they're looking for knock-off copies of, is there? In this case, a search for hooky Louboutins gets you this here post.

i hate pr 
You wouldn't believe how much empathy I feel for this searcher in his/her moment of Googly angst.

make fake nol card 
This is one of a number of searches that land on the blog with clearly criminal intent in mind. One is shocked, shocked I tell you. Another recent search was 'discreet bars in Dubai'!!!

Cow's aorta
I am pleased to be able to tell you that I rank numero uno for this search phrase. It's a funny world, people...

PS
Dirigible Repair Specialist
As Mr Goat points out in the comments, a search for "Digible Repair Specialist" gets you to this post. I have to report, sadly, I am not aware of any search for this string actually landing someone on the blog. One day I might land a slightly puzzled steampunk author, you never know...

Is This The World's Worst Call Centre?

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The amazing tale of John McAffee that has played out over the past few weeks started with him hiding from Belizeian police by digging a hole in the sand and hiding in it with a cardboard box over his head.

It's an image that played in my mind this morning as I listened to the series of mildly farty whooshes on the line. A drug-addled maniac buried up to his neck in the sand with a box over his head, cowering and gibbering softly to himself in the middle of a South American beach. I would rather have been in McAffee's sweat-darkened sandles than in my own shoes, stuck on the end of an IP line to Dumbabad or wherever it is HSBC's call centre is located.

Is HSBC Dubai's call centre the worst in the world? I find it hard to think of a contender, let alone someone who has misunderstood customer service to the degree they believe this 'service' is fit for purpose.

I spoke at the Middle East Call Centre Conference last year. Uber-geek Gerald Donovan had suggested I take to the stage, place a cassette recorder playing 'Greensleeves' on the podium then leave for twenty minutes, returning to say "Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I was busy helping another conference." I am ashamed to tell you I didn't have the bottle to do it. It would, indeed, have been a career high.

In a fit of finger trouble, Sarah had credited our Visa account instead of transferring between two of our current accounts. So I had to get them to reverse the transfer. It was not possible to do this immediately, before the transaction was posted at the close of business, apparently. I had to wait for the funds to clear and then simply reverse the transfer. Simple!

So I wait until the funds clear then call telephone banking. Wait a moment while they identify a random species of mandrake parasite. Now key in the last six digits of your bank account. This number is never recognised by the system, so you just key in any random number. Now your ten digit phone banking number, your twelve digit bank account number or your best estimate of the number of craters on the moon. And now your date of birth in DD/MM/YYYY format followed by the hash key. And now your six digit phone banking number.

By now you're exhausted. But at least you can dial one for card services then star for a human being. And - look into my eyes - you're through to Dumbabad. How can HSBC help you today? Well, I want to reverse a transfer from my Visa account. You want to lick an axe murderer from Crawley? No, I want to reverse a transfer from my Visa account. Ah. Please hold.

The music on hold is inaudible in the whoosh and swish of the IP line. Occasionally IP artefacts cause strange auditory phenomena like eddies in the astral plane. In the sea of wow and flutter you can occasionally hear snatches of music, a slightly manic-sounding, repetitive jangle not unlike a Goan Jamaican steel band overlaid with a recording of Paul Young's bassist. It fades in and out maddeningly.

And we're back. I have to transfer you to internet banking for that, sir. Fine, let's do it. Is there anything else I can do to help you today? No thank you. Can I just confirm your mobile number? Yes. Your PO Box? Look, could you just transfer me, please?

The music on hold is inaudible in the whoosh and swish of the IP line. Occasionally IP artefacts cause strange auditory phenomena like eddies in the astral plane. In the sea of wow and flutter you can occasionally hear snatches of music, a slightly manic-sounding, repetitive jangle not unlike a Goan Jamaican steel band overlaid with a recording of Paul Young's bassist. It fades in and out maddeningly.

I'm on hold for a subjective eternity. Card services. Hi, I want to reverse a transfer from my Visa account. You want to lick an axe murderer from Crawley? No, I want to reverse a transfer from my Visa account. Ah. Hold on.

The music on hold is inaudible in the whoosh and swish of the IP line. Occasionally IP artefacts cause strange auditory phenomena like eddies in the astral plane. In the sea of wow and flutter you can occasionally hear snatches of music, a slightly manic-sounding, repetitive jangle not unlike a Goan Jamaican steel band overlaid with a recording of Paul Young's bassist. It fades in and out maddeningly.

Right. Umm, you can't do that. Yes I can, I've done it before. Hold on a second, I'll transfer you to the relevant team. But...

The music on hold is inaudible in the whoosh and swish of the IP line. Occasionally IP artefacts cause strange auditory phenomena like eddies in the astral plane. In the sea of wow and flutter you can occasionally hear snatches of music, a slightly manic-sounding, repetitive jangle not unlike a Goan Jamaican steel band overlaid with a recording of Paul Young's bassist. It fades in and out maddeningly.

Sorry to keep you holding for so long. The agent you need to talk to isn't picking up, I'll just transfer you to the relevant team. HANG ON before you transfer me, who is 'the relevant team'? Card services. But they transferred me to you. They're the ones you need. Fine.

The music on hold is inaudible in the whoosh and swish of the IP line. Occasionally IP artefacts cause strange auditory phenomena like eddies in the astral plane. In the sea of wow and flutter you can occasionally hear snatches of music, a slightly manic-sounding, repetitive jangle not unlike a Goan Jamaican steel band overlaid with a recording of Paul Young's bassist. It fades in and out maddeningly.

Card services, hello.  I want to reverse a transfer from my Visa account. I have been on the phone for thrirty minutes now for this one simple thing. You want to lick an axe murderer from Crawley? No, I want to reverse a transfer from my Visa account. Sure, no problem. There, done.

Done?

Yes, done. Anything else I can help you with today?

Liars

The Interview (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am never at my best in job interviews. I’m a disastrous candidate (I was once stopped in the middle of an interview to be told my ‘interview persona sucks’) and even worse as an interrogator. Never a great lover of formality, I find the stilted nervousness appalling.

The other day a candidate asked me what was the difference between PR and advertising. It struck me as an odd question to ask in an interview for a PR job, but I did my best to answer it. And my answer boiled down to this.

Public Relations - as I see it - is the communications discipline. It is about driving structured, benefit-led change. In my professional career, fifteen years now, in public relations I have never told a single lie. Never.

But advertising is all about lying. It's what they do, constantly. What amazes me is how we put up with it, consigning it to the dump bin of background noise when actually we should be protesting it. Look at HSBC's most recent radio ad in the UAE. "At HSBC, we believe that..."

No you don't. That's simply a lie. You do not collectively believe in personal loans with 'keen' (6.5% is competitive, apparently.) interest rates. It's not a corporate value. In fact, your offer is not driven in any way by a "belief", other than a commercial imperative. So why do you find it appropriate to so glibly misrepresent yourselves in this way?

Axe does not make men attractive. Oh, sure, it's an amusing way to highlight the 'brand essence' of the product. It's also a lie. It smells like toilet freshener. I have yet to meet a woman attracted by the smell of toilet freshener. Pantypads don't make you a more successful mum and microwave dinners don't mean more time to enjoy the family. Famously, I would contend a Mars a day doesn't really help you work, rest and play. It just tastes nice and is bad for you. There's no medical evidence to support the unsupportable claim.

It has long been a catechism for me that assertion without proof is a lie. And yet this is what advertising does constantly. Feel the radiance warm your skin, taste the joy of the open road. Dare to dream the dream. Oh, and while I'm at it, why does the 'Hundred reasons to buy a BMW' radio ad only ever feature reason 82? Do you think they even have a list of 100 reasons to buy their blasted cars?

And on and on we go through a litany that touches pretty much every commercial we see. A constant barrage of the untrue, indefensible and mis-characterised. And we let it wash over us rather than pushing back and asking brands to kindly just stick to the facts, the truth.

Which is what you have to do in public relations. Because if you don't, you'll get called out. In public. It used to be by journalists, now it's by every mobile phone in the country.

I can't say the interview was a great success. It contained some very long silences...

The Future Of Money

Image via Wikipedia

Dubai's transport regulator, the RTA (Roads and Transport Authority) has announced it is planning to open up the use of its Nol card to retailers. The slightly oddly named Nol card (nol is apparently an old Farsi word meaning 'fare') is similar to the UK's Oyster, a rechargeable swipe card that uses near field communications technology to process 'no touch' transactions. You just wave the card at a reader and the card is appropriately debited.

Opening Nol cards to retailers in the UAE is an interesting idea. It means that people unable to afford credit cards would be able to swipe their cards for goods now. However, the downside is that the silver and gold Nol cards are not personalised, so if you lose your card, there's no way to recover the money that's on it (the card can be charged up to Dhs500) and anyone could use your lost (or stolen) card in a wide range of retail outlets. The blue Nol card can be personalised and is therefore secure, but I'd be interested to see how the RTA handles reimbursing balances in the case of loss, theft or dispute - and how they propose processing retail refunds in future.

Visa debit cards are already on the market here that have implemented NFC technology, although no retailers here yet have NFC readers installed. (I have one of these cards from HSBC but daren't use it in case something goes wrong). And you can only guess at how prepared banks are to implement the complex infrastructure needed to support an entirely new payment method.

Reports in today's press don't say anything about charges for this service, either. The Nol card currently costs Dhs35 on issue (from metro stations only - it's usually Dhs70) and there is no charge for the 'cost of money', but this could well change once the cards are being used for third party transactions.

But the real kicker is not card based at all - it's mobile.

Android and Blackberry mobiles already support NFC, although Apple phones don't - apparently the iPhone5 is popularly expected to have NFC support. The RTA is already talking about porting the Nol system to mobiles, which is surprisingly advanced thinking. Now you have the benefit of total personalisation based on your mobile's SIM. You also have a lovely clash between the RTA, the telcos and the banks. Who will 'own' mobile money?

And this is where the Nol card idea becomes really interesting. Because if the RTA gets in there fast, they'll potentially completely cut the credit card companies out of the whole mobile payment scheme. If I were Visa I'd be offering retailers free readers and beating a path the RTA to sell them the idea of working together to make this happen as a team.

But then, what do I know? Maybe they already have..

How To Upset Your Customers

Image via Wikipedia

I'm not sure I am aware of any organisation that is quite so skilled at ineptitude of the highest order as my bank, HSBC Middle East. As I have had reason to remark before, I cannot think of one aspect of personal banking that has not at some stage caused me problems, been mishandled or generally failed to deliver as promised. This is not generally considered to be a good thing.

You can search the blog for 'bank' if you want to steep yourself in the most recent five years of blthering idiocy, but it's been something like 18 years in total now since I first walked into the British Bank of the Middle East and admired the two gun-wielding bedouin guards at the door.

These days, I try and avoid going to the branch at all costs. It makes me physically angry even to walk in. (So please do take my remarks with a pinch of salt, I am not my usual calm and Zen-like self when it comes to issues related to banking.)

It's one reason why telephone and Internet banking has been such a Godsend. The vast majority of transactions can take place in a nice, automated phone call or browsing session. I actually only use phone banking because I can't remember all the passwords, PINs, forgettable questions etc. And even then, HSBC asks that you remember (and key in) your 10 digit personal banking number or your 12 digit bank account number, your date of birth, your six digit personal identity number and the average velocity of an African swallow.*

Now they've found a new way to get to me. They have started playing an advertisement for some financial service or another to their customers when they call up to use phone banking. The advert not only drones on in English, but is then repeated in Arabic. While.we.wait.

You can only imagine what kind of drooling nincompoop would have thought that interrupting customers using a service that's part of a service package they are paying for (and we pay plenty) and rendering them helpless to do anything other than wait out the interruption would be a good idea. It's frustrating, irritating and annoying. It clearly demonstrates the bank has nothing but disrespect for its customers, their time and their convenience. And it's clearly symptomatic of a failure to understand the nature and role of corporate communications at the most fundamental level.

Irritating and inconveniencing your customers is not smart marketing. It just shows your contempt for them.
 * Okay, so I made the last one up.

How To Self-Publish In The UAE

Image by saraab™ via Flickr

Here's your own guide to the process, just in case you decide to write and self publish your own book. And before you start with all yer 'yeah, right, like that's going to happen', don't write the idea off. It can all be quite cathartic, believe me.

1) Write a book.
This is generally considered to be a good first step in self publishing. Of course, if you're self publishing a picture book, or a collection of your watercolours you'll have to approach things slightly differently but I'm going to concentrate on the novel form for now.

2) Get a professional editor. 
I use Robb Grindstaff. I've always heard good things about UK based Bubblecow but have never used 'em. Update. Worked with them and they're good/recommended. You need a professional edit for two things - a structural edit and a line edit. The structural edit looks at your story and how you've put it together, aiming to cut redundancies, tighten things up and keep you basically on the straight and narrow. The line edit gets rid of all those stupid little errors that litter every manuscript, no matter how hard you search for 'em. People like Robb are born with strange compound eyes that pick these up in a way we normal mortals can't aspire to emulate.

3) Make sure you understand what you've written.
That sounds daft, doesn't it? But you're going to have to sell the thing all by yourself, so you'd better have properly scoped out the subjects, topics and characters of your book and sifted through them to find the best angles to promote, the things that are going to engage people. You'll need a strong blurb, too. More posts on this later, I'm sure. (Are you guys okay with all this book talk or are you longing for me to go back to whining about HSBC and stuff?)

4) Decide on your platforms.
It's essential to be on Amazon's Kindle and for that I used Kindle Direct Publishing. To support other e-reader formats, I went to Smashwords. I also put together an edition using CreateSpace, which lets me offer a printed book through Amazon.com. Of course, e-reader adoption in the Middle East is still low because Amazon doesn't sell either Kindle or content to the region, which really doesn't help us writers, I can tell you. Because of this, you're going to have to print your own booky book for the Middle East market.

5) Apply for permission to print from the National Media Council.
In order to print a booky book in the UAE, you have to have permission. Importing a book is different and requires a different level of permission, which any distributor will sort out. But printing one here means you have to get this permission. How? By going to the NMC in Qusais (behind the Ministry of Culture building) and lodging two full printouts of the MS. One of these will stay in Dubai as a reference copy and one will go to Abu Dhabi to the Media Control Department, where it will be read and approved or not for production in the UAE.

6) Realise that Dubai is going to take its sweet time over this and send another copy direct to Abu Dhabi yourself by bike.
I am so very glad I did this.

7) Obtain your permission to print
I got mine in an unreasonably short time thanks to a very nice man at the NMC taking pity on me and accelerating his reading of my book. It helped that he loved the book, which delighted me more than you could possibly imagine.

Update here - getting the actual document was a tad harder than getting the verbal go ahead!

8) Get an ISBN
This is actually a doddle. You nip down to the Ministry of Youth and Culture in Qusais and give 'em Dhs200 and a filled out form that gives the title of your book and some other details and they send you a fax (A fax! How quaint!) with your UAE ISBN number. By the way, ISBN numbers mean very little, they're a stock code and do not have any relationship to copyright or any such stuff. You need one to sell books, but that's as far as it goes.

9) Go mad trying to find novel paper, then give up and go to Lebanon.
By now you will have already got a quote from a printing press - all they need to actually print the thing now is that little docket. It's about here you'll finally make the decision that you don't want to use the 'wood-free' paper all the UAE's printers want to print your book on, but to actually use real book paper. It's actually called, wait for it, 'novel paper' and is a very bulky, lightweight paper. Pick up a book by the spine and it will tend not to 'flop', while a book printed on wood-free stock will.

Nobody's got it. It's as if nobody in the UAE has ever published a 'real' book, just books printed on copier paper. I'm not having it - I'm going to all the trouble and expense of producing my own book, it had better look like a book, feel like a book and, when you pinch its ear, squeal 'I'm a book!'.

So one goes to Lebanon - or Egypt, or Jordan. People write and publish books there all the time, so you'll find printers and novel paper abounds. Which means you never needed that permission to print at all, as now you're importing a book. Bang head repeatedly against brick wall and do Quasimodo impersonations.

10) Delay the UAE edition launch to the TwingeDXB Urban Festival, taking place on the 10th December 2011, where you're doing a reading and stuff.
I could have made it in time for the Sharjah International Book Festival if I'd settled for the other paper, but I decided to delay instead and get it done properly. So we're launching the online edition at Sharjah, with an open mic session where I and self-published Emirati author Sultan Darmaki will be doing readings and Q&A and stuff. That takes place this Sunday, the 20th November, at the SHJIBF 'Community Corner'.

IBAN Numbers For The UAE. Be Scared...

Image by ~Aphrodite via FlickrThe news made me shudder. The UAE is introducing IBAN codes for all bank accounts.  By rights, this should cheer me up no end as the IBAN number has long been a mainstay of electronic payments to my real bank in the UK. But it doesn't. It makes me very, very afraid.

My fear is unreasonable, I know. HSBC has a nice, reassuring letter on its website, It even has a 'generate your IBAN' application that lets me key in my twelve digit account number and see what my IBAN number would be.

Let us for a moment skip over the wisdom of an application that asks me to input sensitive personal information without any attempt at security or validation. I am sure any reasonable, competent bank wouldn't encourage its customers to give away account numbers and so on in a way that could lead them to give such information away on, say, a phishing website.

The IBAN number is actually nice and easy. It consists of a two letter country code (AE), a two digit checksum and a three digit bank identification number (HSBC's is 020). Then you have a 16-digit number which consists, in HSBC's case, of four leading zeroes and your 12 digit HSBC account number.

It's nice to see HSBC so keen to use IBAN numbers. This is the bank that didn't have a field on its web-based transfer screen to enter IBAN numbers into - and then charged the currency losses resulting from  the rejected transaction back to the customer.

So why do I think they're going to screw this up? Well, in part because over the 18-odd years I've banked with them there has been no aspect of banking that they haven't at one stage screwed up for me, so I don't see why this should be any different. And in part because I bank with an institution stupid enough to get its customers keying their bank account numbers over open connections with no security or validation. But also because we're all going to need this new system working like clockwork come the end of November.

Why? Because the deadline for implementation of this new numbering system is the 19th November - and any electronic payment made into a UAE bank account without a valid IBAN number after that date will potentially bounce back and incur addtiional charges. And that includes the payment of your salary - the UAE's wages protection system (WPS) will require employers to use IBAN numbers to make salary transfers. If that causes any problems, we'll be rightly banjaxed as most people are paid at the month's end - and the end of November (the first test of the new system) segues neatly into the UAE's National Day holiday. This year the UAE celebrates its 40th year as a nation - it's going to be a biggie.

Maybe it will all go wonderfully. Maybe I'll be proved wrong to be so suspicious and cynical. We'll see...

Foiled!

Image via WikipediaYou might remember my bright idea some time ago, of bankrupting HSBC by using the free valet parking service that comes with their credit cards.

I am sad to report I have been foiled. I got a text last week from them, telling me that valet services at MoE, DCC and MCC have been 'discontinued with immediate effect'.

Not so much as a 'sorry', you'll notice, for simply taking away one of the 'many benefits you can avail' when choosing their Visa card.

I'll find some other way of getting them, don't you worry...

Bankers - A reprise

I think we might get into an iterative link loop here, as this excellent piece on the maladroit gibbering gumboils over at HSBC by the Kipp Report links back to this very self same blog. But hey, don't let that stop you nipping over and enjoying a rattling good read about other peoples' experiences with the bank that likes to say 'Ugh', or noting the large and growing number of Facebook likes etc etc.

I enjoyed doing this little blog search and reading the results. Their wee ears must have been burning over the years...

In related news, I have man-flu and so it's a miracle I've posted anything at all this week.