Fbg 7.1
One of those days again...
Today’s visit to the Co-op Bank was nothing like what I had hoped or planned for. Despite taking with me all the information I'd carefully prepared, and despite staying calm and clear under the circumstances, the experience left me feeling worn out, dismissed, and more confused than when I arrived.
The appointment was meant to help me join an internet account with the Co-op and to clarify a mysterious letter I received recently—one that looked suspiciously like a scam. It requested further details about a direct debit supposedly linked to my account. But I knew, and stated firmly, that I have never set up a direct debit with this particular credit card account. I had one of those card savings books years ago, and while I’ve occasionally used the credit card in shops, I’ve never had online access to it until today when the bank lady showed me how to set it up (she even had difficulty with that), and I had certainly never arranged direct debits. I went in this co op bank near me to pay until they relocated too far away, and then my own bank said I could pay there when the monthly Co-op statements came in. Until they too closed down. And so I transferred the money from my online bank to the Co-op bank when the statements came in..
The bank lady insisted otherwise. “You must have opened a direct debit,” she repeated, as if saying it often enough would make it true. She kept vanishing to talk to a colleague, then returning without addressing my actual questions. When I asked for a clear statement of my payments, and another statement related to the disputed matter, she never produced either. I also raised the issue of late-arriving paper statements, which she ignored entirely.
Each time she returned from speaking to her mysterious colleague, she’d change the subject or shift the blame. When I pushed for clarity on the supposed direct debit, she replied with, “Well, my colleague says you must have set one up.” But when I challenged her to show me where it was listed on my records, she admitted there was no record of a direct debit ever having been set up.
I kept being told things were “sorted.” But nothing was actually sorted—nothing was resolved. She repeated: “So that’s all fine now, isn’t it?” And I had to keep saying: “No, it is not fine. You’ve answered nothing I asked.”
Things escalated when I tried to check something in my Lloyds account on my phone. She reached over and took my phone from me—without asking. She spent about 15 minutes going through my Lloyds account, insisting she’d find the mysterious Co-op direct debit there. She didn’t. There was nothing there. I eventually snatched my phone back, completely shocked that I hadn’t done so sooner. I was stunned at the intrusion, and even more stunned that she still insisted I must have simply “forgotten” I’d set one up.
There was also a lot of confusion on their side, during the setup of the online account for this credit card . Verification codes weren’t arriving, to my phone, but in its place there was a strange unrelated email (which turned out to be spam from Temu) kept popping up, and I was repeatedly told the issue was my phone or my email. Finally, on the third attempt, the correct Co-op communication came through.
This happened several times while the bank lady was setting up the online account. And I was asking her about it, but she did not respond.... she was making out that she had no idea what these emails were coming through at the same time as her trying to get an online code sent to me. But when she went to see her mysterious colleague, I carefully look to see where the scam emails were coming from. They were coming from Temu, which was trying to get me to put my bank details in and I'm assuming they were the ones that stopped the emails actually reaching my email address. When I said that to the bank lady when she returned from one of her visits to her mysterious colleague, she got very furious, .."that Temu... there are a blooming nuisance.". So she did know what it was and she chose to blindside me.....
I left the building with nothing clarified, no answers to the issues I raised, and more than a lingering sense of concern. Not just over the content of that suspicious letter—but over the entire approach taken today. The lack of accountability, the circulu6ar blame-shifting, the repeated evasion of my clear questions, and the shocking disregard for my privacy were all deeply troubling.
I’m still not sure whether the original letter was genuine or a sophisticated scam. But the fact that an unrelated email arrived instantly asking me to insert the code I had just been sent from the co-op, while I am sat in the actual co-op itself, tells me it was likely a scam.
Oh, by the way, the co-op lady had connected me to their Wi-Fi...
And I am too mentally fried today to investigate further, but online, we have no idea what we might be walking into.
All this setting up my online banking and the scam emails coming while I'm actually in the bank while the lady is setting it up it's unbelievable.
I am not sure I trust this co-op online account. And I will be asking my daughter how she feels about today.
Tomorrow, I will write about the rest of the day today ...
I am very tired and I hope there's not too many mistakes here .. By
Creative is one of the photos I took in Liverpool today ...
Night night
Take care
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