I received a letter from my bank yesterday. They send me lots of letters, often containing leaflets with changes to my terms and conditions. These leaflets are too dull to read, which I am sure is intentional. By now, I wouldn’t be surprised if my bank have a legal claim to my left testicle under the terms and conditions of my current account.
Leaflet extract here we go:
> We have recently completed a review of the features and benefits we provide to our customers. Following this review, we have made two changes to the services we provide you.
> **We will no longer be offering you Airmiles**
> […]
> For more information, please see ‘Your Questions Answered’ overleaf.
I briefly paused, to prepare my questions. *Are you, or are you not, utterly selfish bastards?* was one, and *Did some focus group tell you that your customers wished for less from their credit card account?* and *Is this personal, or is this some big fuck you to all your current customers?*
I turned over. These are the questions that they had anticipated:
1. **What do I have to do?** *Well, duh – stand still while we take the piss. Not hard, is it?*
2. **When does the change take effect?** *Check your Terms and Conditions – we’ve backdated it by three years. Hahahahahah.*
3. **Do I lose the Airmiles I have collected with my Card?** *Well, if you consult your Terms and Conditions, you’ll see that we’re doing you a great favour by allowing you to hold onto them. Yes, you may touch me.*
4. **Will I still hold an AIRMILES account?** *Why the hell did you just capitalise that, all of a sudden? Never mind, uh, yeah, for what it’s worth. Like you care.*
5. **Where can I continue to collect Airmiles?** *Up your bum, second shelf on the right.*
Oh, but wait. It gets better. In the post this morning, an oversized yellow envelope. I unwrap it…
> **We’ve made some great changes to AIRMILES.**
> Welcome to the new-look AIRMILES. As you’ll see, we’ve made quite a few changes.
You can’t make this shit up.
Ironically enough, my balance of 550 airmiles is just about enough to get me a return flight to Budapest.
6 replies on “As you’ll see, we’ve made quite a few changes”
Banks eh … it’s not like they each made £11 billion in profit or anything.
Well, quite. One thing that irked me is that it’s as if they are intentionally using the most neutral language possible, in the hope that you won’t notice what they are doing.
Consider: if they riddled it with insincere “sorry”s, then it would be obvious to any reader that they were reducing the quality of their service. However, by being so brusque, the subtext is “we don’t think that this is a big deal, and nor should you.”
The banks won’t say sorry till you do. You know you make their life a complete hassle, what with your demands and expectations and needs.
You say sorry first, and maybe they’ll think about helping you. Unlikely, but maybe. During a full moon perhaps in August. If you are wearing green.
The recording slash movie industry could learn a few tricks from the banks about taking away stuff you had anyway and then making you feel like you didn’t need it, didn’t want it, and really should be paying for it.
Good old Official Language.
They did that with tube travel in January.
“In order to improve our service to you by simplifying the ticketing structure, we’re withdrawing the cheap travelcard that you use and forcing you to use a more expensive one containing zones you never use. We’re also going to stamp on your garden daffodils, loser.”
I hate people who aren’t me.
Apart from me. I’m your king, a good and wise one at that.
I feel that I should comment in a positve way regarding banks …
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……. yeh well I work for one! You really thought I was going to say something good?! You did? Fool!