Mobile banking

Whilst out, yesterday, the Gorse Fox had an opportunity to use his Mobile Banking App. This is something he hasn't used for a long time, and certainly not on his new phone. It forced him to go through an activation process and finally asked him for his account details, selected digits from his pin, and also from his password. All seemed in order. Then it failed with a big splash page saying it couldn't establish a connection, and try again later. The Gorse Fox had been using 4G, but resolved not to bother further - he would sort it out today.

The Gorse Fox has spent the last hour or so - connected to home WiFi and his strong broadband - trying to resolve the issue. The problem persists.

He contacted the bank's online web chat team. They talked him through uninstall and reinstall. Then re-activation... and the same failure again. Web chatter gave up and provided a dedicated phone number for mobile app support. The Gorse Fox phoned... selected option 4, was told it would be a while, then got connected to a totally different department. He explained his problem and was transferred to the correct department.

The Gorse Fox related his tale of woe. The chap said "Oh yes, we know about this. We applied an update and it broke the app. It'll be end of January before we have a fix". The Gorse Fox was a little stunned. "Install the Business Banking App and use that" he said. "That should work".

It's a good job that the Gorse Fox doesn't really care. He was only trying to use it to try out some its functions. All of his banking has been done online today - before he tried the mobile app. It seems a bit pointless having an App for banking on the go, if you can't trust it to work when you need it.