Bank robbers

I know I have blathered about the amazing state of Italian banking before, but now I'm really riled. Back in June 2005 I ranted

As for internet banking, fuggeddaboutit.

Today, in a spirit of adventurousness and knowing that next week it will be all but impossible to find the time to go to the bank, I thought I'd give it another shot. Hah!

One total fiasco, to whit; I'm not allowed to pay my electricity bill because I don't know the exact details of the name of the company that is selling me the friggin' juice. I have the account details. I found the various other numbers one needs to send a payment. But every single permutation of the many diverse names I can find for the monopolistic, over-charging bastards gives me the same error, that the name I have entered does not match the name attached to the account number. Eventually I just gave up.

One daylight robbery, to whit: At least my landlord's proper name matches its account, so the payment there went through. But imagine my surprise when I was charged an extra one euro (€1.00) for the privilege of doing all the dirty work myself. Small price to pay for not having to stand in line for 45 minutes, you might say. And it is cheaper than the bank's charge of €4.33 for having a human being perform the same task (almost as slowly as me). But still. Give me a break.

I hold no brief for foreign banking, and no animosity towards the flatulent Mr Fazio (well, not much), but I really cannot wait for someone to come in and clean up. Literally and figuratively.

Then we'll see how easy it is to close an account and switch banks. Moving to First Direct provokes nothing but happy memories.

24 July 2017 I'm still with the same bank; switching is a distant hope.