Don't Bank on the Banks in England

Before leaving Canada, a friend suggested to me that I consider getting an HSBC bank account as they are quite a global bank. Great idea. So I went to the local branch, explained my situation and I was told that I couldn't open a Euro currency account in Canada and that I would have to wait until I was in Europe...no problem. These days it is usually simple to obtain money in our ever shrinking global village, usually through bank machines. A couple of years ago, I was able to withdraw money in Nepal, how cool is that?!? When I backpacked through Europe after university, traveller's cheques were still the way to go but they've fallen out of the mainstream so they aren't really an option any more.

Once I arrived in England, I set off confidently to HSBC to try and open a bank account. Well, it turns out it's not such an easy affair. I need to be a permanent resident and that obviously doesn't fit in with the wandergliding motif. I then tried going to a building society, which is somewhat like bank...but no go. My aunt suggested a joint account with her or my cousin but I seemed to continuously get the run around. Eventually HSBC said I could get a joint account but I would have to keep it active for 12 months and it would cost me £8/month (of course the bank needs to make some money off of me).

Okay, maybe I can just survive with using bank machines and just taking out more money than I would like to at any given time but I would need to minimize the number of $5/withdrawal charges I get. However, I am trying to buy a campervan to live in for the summer, so how will I purchase this vehicle from a private citizen? I looked at money transfer companies like Western Union and even online ones like PayPal but their rates are pretty high.

I decided to call Visa in Canada and see what they would suggest. "You should be able to go into a bank and use your Visa card to withdraw as much as you want provided you go to a teller Mr. Underwood." Sweet, that's the ticket. On my cousin Sid's recommendation, I wandered down to HSBC to see if this truly was the case...but no, rejected again. I tried Lloyd's, NationWide and a couple of other banks and building society's but no one would oblige. One bank even suggested I go to a foreign exchange place and although the woman there was much more helpful than most of the bankers, she explained that she could give me anything but British Sterling...that's the whole point of a foreign exchange! I tried my luck at the post office...nope. Finally I went to the last bank I hadn't tried, Barclays, and a woman there was quite helpful and tried contacting some higher up Barclays' office, their computer system was down so after almost half an hour of waiting, she suggested I come back the next day, which I did. At first the manager wasn't in so I was told to return in an hour, which I also did. By this time, the manager was in a meeting so I waited almost an hour until one banker, a cute one at least, interrupted their meeting to quickly ask about my situation but I was denied. As the locals would say here, "Sod it!".

I decided that my only option seemed to be to go to a bank machine everyday until I had enough money for a campervan. Thankfully I have been able to withdraw £300 from my debit card and £300 from my credit card but with a $5 charge on each each time!

As the final got ya, bank machines here only spit out £20 and £10 notes. You can imagine the wad I have accumulated having withdrawn £2400 so far. So after doing one of the withdrawals of £600, I went into a bank to try and exchange them for £50 notes. "Do you have an account with us sir?" "No!", I responded, finally getting a bit aggravated, knowing what was coming next. "Well I'm sorry, but we can't exchange that for you." Okay, I can understand about their worries of money laundering and counterfeit issues but if I can show a receipt that I just took the cash out of their bank machine...don't you think logic should prevail?!? Well, I guess looking at how the banks of the US, UK and many other European countries have contributed massively to this latest recession...why would I have thought any different!?!

My big wad o'cash: