Dear Bank - it is MY money,

not yours. 

I went into the bank yesterday afternoon. This involves a long pedal there and bank. It is not inclined to put me in a good mood when I get there at the best of times.

The bank no longer deals with "customers" in the way it once did. There is a dragon at the door which might allow you to enter if they think your "business" is important enough. Apparently mine was, I was permitted to enter.

Then I had to wait and, once having explained what I needed to do, I was told, "You can't do that."

Really? It is my money. I would like to take it out then. Oooh you can't do that either...at least not straight away and we will charge you to do that. 

Now I know banks can work that way. There are no doubt good reasons for it but in this particular instance it was not what I had been told when the account was set up. The bank knew why it needed to be set up and what the purpose was. It is there in their records. I was told the money would be "accessible immediately at any time". It is not. Yesterday I was told that I "should not have been told" this.  Oh, thank you very much.  And that is as far as I could get. 

We now need to go through the complicated business of Brother Cat paying half the bill and me paying half. It is complicated by the fact that the person who is owed the money banks with a "credit union" which it is apparently impossible to transfer money to "bank to bank". That means Middle Cat and I need to go to another bank (where "customers" can still get cash) and get cash and take it to the "credit union" in question. 

All this is absolutely ridiculous. Writing a cheque would be much simpler - but the bank has now stopped issuing those as well. In all this they seem to have forgotten it is MY money they are using to make THEIR obscene profits. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.