Bankers

There's something seriously amiss in the world of personal banking here in the great southern land. We opened two bank accounts with NAB. First a "cheque" (current) account, followed by a "savings" (current) account, the latter intended for accruing enough money to fund the trips away from Sydney. When you pay by Eftpos (switch), you have to indicate whether the account is cheque or savings to the checkout girl.

Later, we opened a credit card account, just for convenience. I had to go into the branch to collect the card because they wouldn't post it. I couldn't activate the card because I didn't have my passport as identification, so I took my passport to the branch at Bondi Junction, which was closed for refurbishment. The card is still in my purse, unactivated.

You'd think we therefore have three accounts with NAB, but no, we have four accounts because they opened another one by mistake.

The bank's charges include charges to use other banks' ATMs, $5 per month account handling fee, $5 to set up a direct debit, and so on and so on.

Ella's nursery also bank with NAB. We wanted to set up a standing order to pay the fortnightly fees, so we went into the bank. They told us it would be better to do it online, but the fees were due that day, so we asked whether we could transfer some money from our account to theirs. This, apparently, wasn't possible. Instead I had to go out to the cash machine, withdraw the money and rejoin the queue in the bank to pay the money in.

So then we went online to set up the standing order, but the NAB website said we had to do it in the branch. By now, another fortnight had elapsed, so I went back into the branch to set up the standing order, but also to write a cheque and pay it into the nursery's account to pay the fees, which were due again. Paying the cheque into the nursery's account involved lots of form filling and signatures and took about ten minutes.

After that, I asked the bank cashier to set up a standing order. We filled in lots more paperwork so that the first payment could leave the account on April 2nd. And then we were just grateful the whole thing was taken care of.

Last week we received a bill for over $2,000 from the nursery. The fees have not been paid because the bank forgot to set up the standing order. We have to find $2,000, like, now.

Bankers, the lot of them.