Laundering

The Gorse Fox has been fighting with the forces of international drug cartels, terrorism and the banks. You see in an effort to protect against money laundering the banks have made it ever more difficult to do anything with your money. The Gorse Fox wanted to transfer some money to Cousteau-cub... something he has done many many times before - though not recently.

The saga then began:

• He logged onto his Online banking account. The signal was poor in the hotel so he kept losing the connection.
• He went down to reception where the signal was stronger, logged on again and went to the relevant section to set up the transfer only to be rejected as he needs a special card-reader to authorise the the transaction. (Cousteau-cub has changed banks so he could use the existing transfer he has used in the past). He doesn't have one. It takes about a week or so for one to be provided and set-up.
• He phoned the bank. They couldn't help on the telephone banking desk but realising he was a Private Banking customer put him through to the Private Banking desk.
• The Private Banking desk couldn't help because he needed to be authorised for level 2 services. Apparently he hadn't requested this. (Gorse Fox not only had requested these services he even knew hs password and pin and secret question.... but "Computer says No").
• Only solution was a visit to the branch.
• The Gorse Fox would head out at lunchtime to do do this.
• The work on the spreadsheet model took over - Thursday was a 16 hour day - the bank would have to wait (for some reason they're not open at 11pm)
  
• So the Gorse Fox headed out into Saturday's gale to the Bank.
• The bank couldn't transfer the money because Cousteau-cub banks with a different organisation. (Gorse Fox thought that's what the clearing house was for). In the end he withdrew the cash (plus some extra because with all of the delays C-c has probably incurred some charges) and walked round the corner to her bank (praying it was open on a Saturday) to deposit the money.

Done.

Gorse Fox thought these online services were meant to make life easier... but because he may be laundering drug money or financing terrorism life has to be made intolerably frustrating.