Bring Back the Branches

A colleague of mine has her main home in London. Having an Oyster card is the most sensible option for dealing with her transport needs at home. The most efficient way of making sure that there is always credit on that card is to have it renew automatically against a credit or debit card. All is fine and dandy until the day the card fails to renew because there is something wrong with the card. No problems – this is just a glitch – a phone call to the card company should sort it out. Except that you can’t get through to the card company, your own bank or indeed Oyster. And if you to get to speak to a human being, you have inevitably picked the wrong option. So, the waiting continues whilst they keep ypou on hold, trying to put you through to the right department. All very annoying when you only have a few minutes to make that call.
I’ve had comparable problems, with a bank “having technical problems”, and not being able to process my card – a card in fact, which is not recognised by my pin sentry or even my own bank, but which normally works in ATMs and for phone transactions.
The problem is, the branches are so far away and so busy also, because there are now so few of them.
Bring back the branches. Bring back the human beings.