Six years ago my normally very healthy partner was suddenly struck down by pancreatic cancer. Before she died she closed her ASB Bank account.
Ever since then numerous letters have arrived from the ASB over her alleged outstanding debt. I’ve done nothing about this, wondering just how long this farce will continue.
As readers can imagine, these letters have been a source of great amusement but I’ve now decided to go public via this Blog, after rejecting the notion of writing on her behalf offering, as the latest letter invites, to pay the debt off in 10 monthly instalments. Should I to do that only then would the ASB stop relying totally on computers to run the shop and finally look at the debt and doubtless red-faced, drop the matter.
This preposterous farce is no reflection on the ASB, rather the same sort of nonsensical non-management can be found with all large corporations in their substitution of computer technology for thinking.
One give-away is the signature, a Michelle Brailsford, inaccurately described as the Credit Solutions Manager over her division’s title, Collections and Credit Solutions.
Two points here.
First, she’s not the bloody manager, she’s the manageress. This nonsense is simply fashionable, epitomised, unsurprisingly in their case, by thespians and their mindless silliness in deciding the word “actress” is offensive, thus today females must call themselves actors.
This can pose problems with the 20th Century vogue of boys being given normally female names and vice-versa; e.g. Evelyn Waugh, he the funniest ever novelist in the English language. Lionel Shriver, the talented female American commentator, and so on.
When I was 17 I picked up the brilliant “Ballad of the Sad Café” by Carson McCullers. It wasn’t until five years later I discovered Carson was a woman, and so it goes.
The second point is the use of the word “solutions”, a give-away of mindlessness fashion following. Plumbing solutions, Building solutions, Accounting solutions; it’s rife everywhere.
My company spends tens of millions annually with tradesmen and diverse other services but never with any using “Solutions” in their name for damn good reasons. That’s because most trades and professions slip into the habit of responding to issues in identical fashion. But frequently problems require innovative thinking which by definition is beyond fashion followers.
As I’ve written, this ludicrous ASB correspondence is not peculiar to them but normal today in all larger companies, and some smaller ones, in their 100% reliance on computer technology.
Should I let it continue, we’re about 3 years away when they’d eventually have passed it over to a debt collector, whereupon the whole process would have recommenced with a series of similar letters, each costing in postage alone 200% of the actual debt, including the envelope.
I suspect this tale will elicit a sizeable reader response recounting similar occurrences.
20 Comments
The stupidity of it.
My wife works at one of the major banks, and the computers went down the other day…
See was the only one who knew how to do transactions manually…
Says it all about where we are heading…
And dont expect solutions from the government; pun intended….
Send them a cheque
Better still turn up at the counter with cash….
CRAZY!
Oh yes. All so familiar. When my father required rates relief then rest home level care, I had to supply his marriage certificate. My mother couldn’t find it. At the time she was six feet under and had been for some time. I’m assuming she still is.
“Reaching out”!
Say what you bloody mean. You are not reaching out in any manner or form. YOU ARE WRITING …………
“Reaching out”…….inane verbosity!
Only the Four Tops should be reaching out.
Phew, so it’s not just me…..
years ago, when i left for my OE, I changed my address at the bank back to my parents, whom I left with enough cash to cover any bills i may have forgotten to pay.
When i got back, a letter arrived from the bank, alleging i owed them a sum of $700, timely as ever , as i had landed with the princely sum of 50 pounds to my name.
when quizzed on money matters dad said they received no mail from the bank while i was away, also, in my absence one of my sisters had crashed my car ,the cash had been used to repair it.
so, down to the local lawyer, who for $65 wrote a letter (late 80’s) to the bank, suggesting we would pay the $700 if the bank would produce evidence they had in fact sent out monthly statements.
that was the end of it. now my 50 pound nest egg was down to around $40
we did discover ,when i left my check account was over drawn by $186 , with fees etc.. it eventually amounted to close to $800
Watch Mr Bates and the Post Office to see how corporates treat their client/ employees. All about computer glitches
Firstly, Sir Bob, my condolences for your loss.
Secondly, I can just imagine the fun you could have with the ASB over this. You would need to commit identity theft of course. Their kind offer to help your late partner get back on her feet is perhaps too good an offer to decline… All this nonsense over eighty cents. Still, NZ Post are complaining about falling mail numbers. ASB are doing God’s work in keeping them busy.
And it was probably bank fees
This reminds me of a similar situation back in 1973. I had been at university courtesy of a scholarship with the NZ Post Office, who handled the phone systems back then. After 2 years, during which time during study breaks I had to work in the Engineers Office, I decided that the public service was no place for this country boy, brought up on a diet of hard work and self responsibility. Two weeks into work in the holidays I was pulled aside by the Senior Technican and told “not to work so hard as I was embarassing the others”. Observing the engineers in their later lives, I determined that apart from a couple of outliers, they became either entrenched alcoholics (that group would gather around 2-30pm each day and head out for “meetings”, usually held at the Bush Inn or the pub on Oxford Tce, and arrive back at 4-20pm, five minutes before the Public Service finish time of 4-25pm) or religous fanatics. My manager held me up for public ridicule in the office when I placed a “peace sign” in the centrepiece of my dial telephone. Declaring it as an upside down broken cross, and as such defiled the name of Jesus. Sadly no-one stood up for me (it was an early open plan office) and that sealed my fate – or theirs depending on your point of view.
So I resigned, and had to return a number a number of items provided to me by the Post Office, including a drawing set. The fancy dividers and compass were all returned intact, but the protractor, a basic plastic item, had split, so I had binned it some time ago.
Three months later, when I was well into my OE in some part of Europe, my father received a letter, similar to the one here, indicating that they had received no response from me (despite knowing full well my intentions to travel overseas – it had been part of the “negotiations” to extract myself from the scholarship) and that as my father they were seeking his help to enable them to recover the cost of the protractor. Included was a bill for 35 cents for the item.
My father, not unaccustomed to the use of the English language (his mother had been a teacher) and he a speech adjudicator at the local Young Farmers meetings around the district, wrote back a rather scathing response on the pathetic nature of the issue, reminding them of the costs involved in the recovery, that amounted to a value many times the cost of the protractor, which by then would have been well used, and actually of no value. While I never saw the letter as I was overseas, I suspect he also provided a colourful description of their organisation based on the discussions I had with him, as to why I was giving away such a benefit to aid my study. Yes we received $400 per year plus travel (a lot back then), but they deducted 6% for superannuation. Sounds reasonable until the day the cheque arrived and we found they deducted 6% of what you would have been earning had you were working full time – for year one $150. By your final year you only received about $150.
ASB profit for the 6 months ending December 2023 $707 million, a decrease of $96 million on pcp; they have overstated their profit…..should have been $706,999,999.20 (less the 80c)
Now actually it should have been a few dollars more, because they would have saved money on postage.
This is not new. In the eighties I was living and working in mainland Europe. I had an old British bank account and told the bank to close it, which they didn’t as there was a tiny amount remaining. I told them they could have the funds. No joy. They continued to charge fees and send letters about the now in debt account. I told them I would not pay as they had not followed my instructions and, by the way, I am off to New Zealand. I then emigrated to NZ in 1990. Low and behold, nine months later I received a letter from a US debt collection agency indicating I owed them several hundred US dollars.
I was so impressed by the US debt collection agency’s ability to find me I provided them my work phone number and listened to them threatening to ruin my credit rating, send round local debt collectors to my workplace etc. I felt it my duty to “mess them up” as much as possible as a deterrent against their incredibly dubious practices. I was a real nuisance. I asked for supporting documentation and repeatedly requested further details e.g. copies of bank statements, copies of letters, knowing full well how painful this would be having to go back to original bank. I insisted on physical copies, which they had to post. This provided hours of enjoyment over several nights while I repeatedly poked fun at the remarkably persistent debt collector and dared him to do his worst. The calls alone must have been a substantial cost. He finally stopped calling. Happy Days. My credit rating remains perfect. All over about 60p I tried to gift the bank.
In the late ’60’s we all had a big laugh around the dinner table – dad had received a bill from the electricity supplier for 4c. (Yes, four cents.) He taped four 1c coins to the bill with “MERRY CHRISTMAS” tape and sent it back. Not much new in the silliness zoo.
I would make a small bet that not one person’s eyes have reviewed the debt file. It will be automatically generated, and electronically signed, with Michelle being the current department head.
As a humerous diversion, maybe put in a change of address form for her, to the appropriate cemetery.