Activating the debit card

 

This morning, I finally got around to visiting the grand old bank near my home to activate my debit card. I have been their customer for more than three decades, but just about four months ago they thought I was worthy of having a debit card, and sent me one. While other banks pushed these cards down your throat or shoved them into your pocket, the grand ol’ one kept revisiting their QA processes to assess my suitability…

 

The envelope had been lying on my desk all this while; I was eyeing it everyday but never could muster the courage earlier to do the task. Every interaction with the grand old bank gives me the shudders.

 

Other banks send you such cards and ask you to wait for the T-PIN or something. This one asked me to contact the branch. I asked the fellow at the security desk and he guided me to the teller counters. There were long queues in front of the first three, and the last counter had only one person. I joined him. The teller was stacking notes as I joined. She then started counting the notes on a device beside her.

 

The machine counted till 79, then went “ER 08” – Beep !! She pressed some buttons, then tried again. Same result : “ER 08” – Beep !!  She tried with a different bundle of notes… and again, “ER 08” – Beep !! It was obvious to everyone that the machine was trained to count till 79 only, but she did not understand, and was oblivious to the queue behind me, that was getting longer by the minute. After about six or seven trials, she took all the bundles of notes and went to an old fellow sitting quite a few counters away. We waited.

 

She finished counting all the bundles there, came back, entered the data on her system, then released cash to the fellow in front of me. It was my turn, finally !!

 

I told her I wanted to activate the debit card. She said, “Why here ?” I told here that the letter said so. She brought out a small device and asked me to enter my account number. I did. Then the device asked for my phone number. I entered my phone number, and the device said, “Time out !!” She looked at the device, then at her screen and asked me to go to the ATMs where the security guard, who was apparently trained in these things, would help me out.

 

Made my way to the room beside the branch where the ATMs were housed. People were waiting patiently in a fairly long queue for updating passbooks and withdrawing money, and the security guard was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, he had stepped out for a tea break.

 

He returned after a while, and I was once again number three in the queue. He called me to one of the ATMs. The key pad of that machine was well and truly hidden from view. I inserted the card, entered the account number with great difficulty and the machine said, “Time out !!”

 

The guard offered to help. On the second attempt I rattled out the numbers in rapid succession while he entered them. First the account number, then my phone number. SUCCESS at last !!  

 

My debit card was finally active !! Time taken from start to finish : 1 hour, 20 minutes.