Oh, not another bank rant

Well I'm afraid to say, yes, here comes yet another bloody bank rant.  This one is about Stanbic, Kenya, who have over the past 8 months treated this customer of theirs with utter contempt and ineptitude.

Am I demanding?  Perhaps.

Am I unreasonable?  Not sure on that one.

Am I illogical?  Well, usually not. 

And on this occasion, you may pour scorn on my drama, but not on my logic.

I shall start by quoting the final email I have just sent my so-called "customer representative".  Then I shall take you all through the sorry sorry tale of my woeful interaction with this excuse for a financial institution.

"Dear N,

I give up.

Your service has been appalling from start to finish.

Inconsistent communication; haphazard processes; and a blatant disregard for customer delight.

I only wanted your card for the air miles – and this aborted process has wasted so much of my time, I probably could have flown around the world in the same time.

You may want to Google my blog to see how my wrath has vibrated into the ether on this travesty of customer interaction.  Then again, you most likely won’t bother.

Yours, where words fail to convey my disappointment,

Darren"

And what drove me to this apoplexy?

About 8 months ago, a Stanbic rep visited my offices after about 1 week when I'd requested more information on their website about the Kenya Airways credit card.  This in itself was rather tardy, but I let it go.  The young man, after taking various piece of personal information from me, advised that I would need THREE month's salary evidence.

What for?  I enquired.  Well as we're told constantly by financial advisers - in the same institutions - that past performance is no guarantee of future upward trends. He was blank as to why his employer would need 3 months salary slips - which prove neither that I will be employed in month four or that I'm a good credit risk.

I duly waited four months and then proceeded to the branch.

This wasn't enough, I obviously needed address proof, a letter from my employer and several other things.

But at least my application was submitted.

At no point was my tax PIN mentioned - a rather innocuous thing in Kenya - but a dreadfully difficult thing to get for an alien such as myself - without bribing some nondescript official.  Needless to say, I haven't done that (yet) - but believe me, it's only a matter of time. But I digress.

So then I get an email (one month on) saying "my" paperwork is out of date and I need to submit my most recent salary information and yet another bank statement.  I'm out of date???  The bank delays and then my paperwork is out of date - I was doing somersaults at this point.  

I resubmit and ask by email for an update - silence.  Deafening silence. Not even the decency to deign me with a reply.

So, storming and stomping, I march (again) into the branch and vent my spleen on a certain customer rep who apparently should have been overseeing my application from the outset buy had been on leave.  Ah well, forgiveness was looming and then I said I was looking forward to an update soon.

Well, the update came and it was tantamount to a red rag to a bull.  I had to re-submit all the required documentation AND my tax PIN - which I don't have.

When I scream blue-murder, I'm brushed off with a nonchalant "I'm sorry, but that's the process, please do feel to contact me or customer services for any other matter".  Hence my diatribe response above.

As I pour myself a glass of red wine (OK my 2nd one) and if you've managed to stave off narcolepsy in reading this far, please do tell me if I'm missing something.

Do tell me if I'm unreasonable.

Do tell me if I'm illogical in my expectations.

What the bank doesn't perhaps realise, is I put all my expenditure, where I can on my credit card and they've lost thousands of dollars of merchant fees.

My next crusade will be to tell Kenya Airways, how their so-called finance partner is turning away loyal flyers and forcing me to collect miles with Star Alliance.

It reminds me of a good friend who once scoffed at SkyTeam (of which Kenya Airways is a member).  Perhaps he was right.  SQ is better than KQ and my futile attempt to harvest thousands of miles on the latter has been thwarted - but I will fly with a better airline and in more comfort.

Perhaps, after all this travail, I should thank Stanbic - more than they could ever comprehend.  

"She's a great way to fly."

4 lanes are better than 3 in Lagos

Spending time in Lagos is a little like spending time in Disney Land; you know it’s not real on the surface, but when you dig a little, the deeper you go the more real it seems.  Come on, you agree – you’re telling me that you’ve never sauntered down Main Street in Orlando or LA and been only mildly shocked at strangers dressed in all manner of “cartoon” get-ups prancing around and crossing your path?  Remind you of a high street near you?@!

And so it is, to a certain degree with Lagos – however it’s not as kitsch or dare I say glam as the Magic Kingdom.

I had the “good fortune” to be staying a long way from the office on this trip and this afforded me an opportunity to see more of the “city of lagoons” – which is how the Portuguese named this city when they first landed here several hundred years ago, to the consternation and bemusement of the indigenous population.  And boy, did I see some sights.   

There were bakers transporting their loaves mile upon mile on a palette about 1m x 1.5m jammed full of newly baked bread perched precariously on the back of a rickety moped and speeding through traffic like a cockroach on wheels.  There were sellers of all kinds peddling their wares, dangerously close to the highway.  And winding side-streets took us on “short-cuts”, which felt disproportionately long, but we zipped past barbers, bars, shacks and hardware a myriad of merchants of all types.

But I think the thing that struck me the most and pushed me to doing this blog entry, was the 3 lane highway that drivers didn’t think wide enough.  Wide enough, you repeat?  What do I mean? 

Well, you see on most highways there is a hard-shoulder (or emergency lane) to allow access to ambulances, police vehicles and the like – and Lagos is (with a smile, perhaps surprisingly) no different.  Yet, the locals, perhaps peacocking or perhaps thinking the further away from the verge you are, the quicker you go, insisted on using the hard shoulder.  

Now, if the highway were clogged and not moving – then one may forgive motorists' selfish disregard for safety and other citizens in their driven desire to get home after a long day’s slog at the office.  But, no!  The highway was flowing like milk from a happy goat’s teat. (Sorry about this image – but it seems consistent with West Africa, where the goat is eaten with ferocity and gusto.)  There were no jams, and no slow-gos.  This traffic was speeding at over 80kmh quite merrily.  I was a little agog.

Sometimes what you have is not enough; sometimes the potential is not realized; sometimes the whole is not shared with the many – but rather hogged by the few.  For me, the highway linking the mainland of Lagos to Victoria islands and others was a metaphor for this disappointing situation in Nigeria.  The Big Men (Oga) need to show they’re bigger than the others – they drive on the hard shoulder; the aspiring disregard rules to get ahead of the pack – they drive on the hard shoulder; and the disenfranchised slip over from the inside lane to lane 2 or even 3, to feel “bigger” and squander the prospect of a highway that could move even faster, if everyone stuck to the rules.

However, no matter how fast the Ogas sped down the emergency lanes, no matter how well they thought they’d got one over on authority – or worse, their fellow Nigerians – it all came to a grinding halt at the toll booth.  Here the e-tag system was only partially working and all the traffic crammed and spilled over to a set of tellers taking money with only half of a half-smile and ample lethargy to give any sloth a crawl for its money. 

You sigh, you smirk– and you scratch your head thinking: what was all that bravado for?