Callers In The Night

(My husband is from London, England and has moved over to Canada to start a new life with me. Among the many things to sort out, we’re also trying to transfer the money in his London bank account to our joint one here in Canada. My husband is legally blind and can’t read the websites properly, so I’m attempting to make an e-transfer of his money to our account from the internet.)

Me: *clicking away* “So I need the sort code, but I don’t know what that is and it’s saying that the account number I’m using isn’t valid. Do you know what a sort code is?”

Husband: “No.”

Me: “Hmm, all right. I’ll try clicking on the help section.”

(Much to my surprise, the help function acts like a little speech bubble that points to links I need to click and gives me information on each step. I’m genuinely pleased by this and follow the steps until I see something that makes me freeze.)

Me: “Uh oh… OH, S***!”

Husband: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “Honey, trying to set up a new recipient involves the company CALLING THE PHONE NUMBER ATTACHED TO THE ACCOUNT for verification!”

(The phone number in question? My father-in-law’s house in London! I was doing this at 9:00 at night and London is five hours ahead of us. My father-in-law was woken up by two needless phone calls at two in the morning! Needless to say, my husband and I felt really bad and I questioned this particular bank’s strategy for security.)