Of all the Stupid things people do, Hi-Tech takes the lead

 

 

Midnight will find me on my keyboard tonight.

I am cheesed off, mad as hell, disgusted with modern finance and economic experts; darn I will be 75 years old and I have seen it all. Large companies are now run by computer chips operated by young snot-nosed kids that know everything about hi-tech but not a thing about the foundation of business requirements, except maybe one guy at Standard Bank South Africa.

I am going to try and find him/her if he/she does indeed exist. This Post is my starting point

I have been up a few times during the night but the idea to do this got me out of bed.

The year ahead will be a tough one for the World. It will be a Year to Remember for many; some hard decisions will have to be made by Mankind. I am only mentioning that in passing; today it must wait for when it comes.

Let me get back to Standard Bank.

It has been the only decent Bank in South Africa for a long time. There has been one other one not to bad but I found them involved with a scumbag firm of CFD Traders a while ago and wrote them off too; the others I won’t touch with a bargepole.

Standard Bank remained a pillar of light in the gloom; they had their ups and downs; their customer fees are way out of line by now but they still maintained a small number of old timers in their branch offices you can go in and talk too; very few indeed, but you could find one when you needed one.

That was still the case a while ago before they jumped on the high hi-tech wagon. In their favor I have to add that they didn’t cast all human brains out like most of the competition but hi-tech started taking control and they started to become like the others, well almost as bad. It did remain possible to find a common sense soul when you really need him/her; that was so until about two weeks ago.

That night when I logged in the computer screen told me my browser is out of date and I must upgrade it. Being not fully run by hi-tech yet there was an almost invisible screen option to “upgrade later” in the middle near the top of the screen and I pressed it.

Up jumped a new screen telling me how retarded I am for still sitting with this old browser and that, yes I may now [having pressed the button that I will upgrade later] proceed with my old version but I won’t have such a unique and pleasurable experience of modern browsing as with this new wonder now on offer to which I must press for the immediate upgrade.

I ignored the bull and pressed to continue. You won’t believe this; the old system had been removed and I had to work through a kinder-garden version of a thirty year old computer effort just to get my account balance, but that was not all. Last Thursday, January 29^th I needed to pay a beneficiary and with great trepidation logged on. The empty screen only informed me that it is indeed a Standard Bank web page but nothing else. There was no old or new program. I blew my top, found an old Standard Bank IT Support email address in my WAB and sent them this email:

From me

To: Standard Bank On-Line Support
Account Number: ***stars in here for security
My Branch name
Branch Code ***stars in here for security
I am now so sick and tired of Standard bank I can scream or hope somebody drops a massive bomb on your offices to wipe you out.
Don’t you people do any market research and ask customers what they need. My connection and Internet banking has now been working for years but you suddenly without consulting me want to force me to upgrade my browser.  My old browser works well on everything else and I need an upgraded browser like I need a hole in the head.  Until this morning it worked though if I press the button not to upgrade now or upgrade later it won’t move.
Get my system running or go take you bank and jump in a lake?    Don’t you big money guys understand that you have thousands of little clients each paying his R43 per month for two or three transactions, never bothers you or exceeds his limits but can’t just go and buy a new computer every time the young idiots in IT wants to prove why you have to keep them working there.
Fix my computer.  I have been happy with the old browser and the way it worked.  Run it parallel the way it worked in the past.  Jeez, don’t you guys know about parallel runs no more?
Let me know what in hell you decide.  I need to pay a beneficiary his money.
**** my name for security
my email address for security

**** for my tele no for security

I then CC copied my email to the media and an entire bunch of my friends and for some or other reason probably due to my frustration and excitement also a copy to the Western Cape Government.

Would you believe it? I don’t have much faith in governments but this one Province happened to be controlled by an opposition Party I sometimes vote for and because a friend who is our city council alderman asked me to support him. Well, the only reply I got to my tirade was a nice friendly letter from the Western Cape Government advising me that I probably need to write to Standard Bank and proceeded to give my all the contact details that I may need of them as well as her full contact details as representative of the Western Cape Government. Do you know any computer hi-tech ignoramus that can write an email’ well, I have never met one.

What a pleasant surprise when I logged into Standard this morning? My old outdated browser page was back; it’s now running parallel and I don’t have to press any “upgrade later” button; that has been removed as well.

It’s now past midnight Friday, February 06, 2015 12:39 AM out our way.

I am going to try and get this Post in and will then with the aid of the link try to locate the one remaining guy with common sense at Standard Bank to thank him and wish him/her well on the road of sanity.

 ikejakson@gmail.com

Tags: African Internet, Banks, business, Golden Oldies, Standard Bank SA, Velocity Trade