I hate birthdays. I'm Scottish and we seem to love things like new years and birthdays as an excuse for self flagellation.
I'm 29 this year, which feels like the on-ramp to 30. I've not really got established here, so it's going to be a skype-fest of well-wishes as opposed to heading down the pub with mates. Not the best start, but as I will write about, with the tools of modern life travelling alone is anything but...
Anyway, back to the birthday, as per usual, I started listing the standing points of woe....
- I've not travelled
- I'm stuck in a rut in London
- I still don't feel grown up, and I'm 30 soon
Boo hoo, whiny middle class guy complaining again. I'm bloody lucky to be able to do what I'm doing right now and I know that. The flip-side was when I thought through the points:
- I'm in Sydney for 7 months having seen some bits of Asia.
- I've a job for 6 months starting Monday. It's going to be a challenge, in an entirely good way.
- Why should I feel grown up? Sure I do lots of grown up stuff, but it's not like you get a certificate. Frankly do I even want one.
So yes, while I'm a little sad I've not found housing and some friends sooner, the last 3 months have been some of the most adventurous of my life. I've not gone mental, but I'm merrily doing things that "I don't do".
If that's not the best present you can give yourself I don't know what is.
Update: After I wrote this offline and before I posted I found somewhere. w00t.
Sorry, this is a rant containing some vague user experience stuff behind a thick veneer of bile.
Banking is always fun when you're abroad. I'll leave the more general rants about how banks aren't really global to my friends Laurie and Simon who have covered this far better than I. I'll give some vague praise to the UK banking system, because compared to the Australian system, they don't seem to want to charge you for everything - and I mean everything. Praise where it's due however, and I should give Citibank Australia some since I applied on Tuesday, and on Thursday my account is up and running.
Trying to explain to banks that you're not going to be where they think you are is challenging. A few months ago I tried to get a replacement card, as my card was due to expire when I was away. I figured I'd go through the pain of the cardswap while I was in the UK so I knew that I wasn't going to be left high and dry abroad. The operator didn't seem to understand that I could possibly want my card early, "we'll be automatically dispatching all cards due for replacement sometime in April". He also failed to place the order correctly so that it wasn't until a week later that I go a meek customer services call to inform me that the order wasn't placed. My old card was cancelled and eventually I got a new one.
Anyway, turns out the my beloved Citibank UK will sometimes accept my old card number, I'm guessing because it's "helpful". It was very helpful last week when I had a pointless 5 minute chat with an operator (at international roaming rates) only to be told I'd typed my old card number in (damn muscle memory) and that I would have to call back and re-enter it. Had the automated system rejected me that at the front of the call, I could have checked it and typed it in again. That is a apparently inconvenient for customers though, dragging them towards the transaction then declining them is a better experience.
Anyway, today I picked up my Citibank Australia card, not a totally useful Visa Debit card, that's gone back to Scotland and is lost in space. That card, which I will never see is cancelled and DOA. As and when I have an Australian address I can get a real card. But today I do have a bank account and they did issue me with a cashcard on the spot. And they even gave me the account number. Regarding this as progress, I sat down to log on to my internet banking for Citibank UK to transfer the money to the new account. This is free and instantaneous online. This financial umbilical was pretty much the reason I chose Citi, there's little else integration in the banks, and little real difference in the charging, just in how they are dressed up. (Mobile phone tarriffs anyone?)
I couldn't log onto Citibank UK internet banking. "Please enter you new card number" My first thought was "they've cancelled the wrong card, somehow they've cancelled the UK card". Got a balance from a cash machine. The card was still alive, so why couldn't I connect to the internet banking.
After calling and getting irritated at call centre, far more than I want to as I know they can't really help - I figured it out. Although you log into the internet banking with a username and password and personal data, that is just a front for your card number your Electronic PIN, which is of course not your Telephone PIN or the bog standard PIN. Once you've registered you're never asked for the ePin ever again.
What's happened is that, unbeknown to me, I've still been logging on with my old card into internet banking. It wasn't until today when the card (that was cancelled when I got the new one) actually expired that it stopped being valid. Which is very useful. I'm in a foreign country needing to enter a 6 digit number that I've not had to use in about 2 years since they introduced the new logon process which gave you a username and password.
There was no warning displayed on screen. No handy little "This is an expired card, please revalidate with your card and ePin" type messages. Do they not realise that asking people to enter a security number that you've not used in 2 years is a little hopeful. I don't keep PINs stored anywhere, because of you know security.
It's ok though, as on the first call, having had an ePIN dispatched to Scotland, I was told that "you can do anything you could do online over the phone as you still have your telephone-PIN." That's alright then, so i call back to add a payment to Australia.
As said before, if I do it online it's quick and free. Turns out if I do it over the telephone it becomes a bog-standard international transfer rather than an inter-citi, so will cost me 20 quid and take about 3-5 business days. As I was locked out I could have the transaction fee waved. But the time thing was still stuck. I walked to a cash machine, took some cash out, walked to a Post Office, paid the money in. I now have an Australian bank account with some balance.
While I'm glad that there is some grace with the card & online access (when they issue a new card they have to cancel the old), a couple of weeks would be more realistic than "until the card expires". And give me a damn warning on the interface, if you're going to hide a long forgotten ID from me, prod me that I might need to look it out/get issued with a reminder.
