You’ve recently selected to buy something from eBay and to do so you need to transfer money from your account to a Hong Kong bank account. Thankfully, you think, there’s this little thing called the Internet which has Internet Banking on it so you decide you would go to use that.
After about 20 minutes of frustration by realising the person who was selling you the item did not give you a BSB number, You decide to call the bank’s number. First you get a “For account enquries please press 1” and so on. This is not welcoming. Eventually the LAST option (option #5), general enquiries, is the one you want. You press that and instantly you’re transported into a world of pain listening to the relaxing “music” they play when you’re on hold and the stupid voice overs that tell you about all the “great” things about the bank.
Eventually you’re put on to a real person. You tell them what you want to do and they nearly trip over themselves trying to help you. They go through a list of about 9 things you need. You have the first 8. The 9th is an IBAN or International Bank Account Number, which my seller did NOT provide me with. You ask them if it is possible to work it out from the information you’ve given them. They say no. You politely thank them for their help and you hang up in frustration. You pick up a random object and throw it across the room. In this day and age why is it so hard to send money across the world? WE HAVE THE INTERNET FOR GOD’S SAKE.
The next day, a Saturday, after running some errands you realise that it’s 11am and, thinking that the bank shuts at 12pm, you are in no particular rush. Out of interest you get home, go online and check to make sure the bank is where you think it is, only to see the closing time is actually 11:30am, and not 12pm. You race out the door and nearly forget to lock it. You speed off down the street nearly cleaning up the cars on both sides of the road and as you’re about to turn right to get out of the estate an old man driving a tiny car drives by. Doing 40.
You estimate that it’ll take you 20 minutes to reach the bank, doing the legal speed limit of course, but if you’re stuck behind this guy for any longer you probably won’t make it to the bank because you’ll: a) Park yourself in his boot b) Get pulled over for overtaking at higher speeds than what is most probably legal, all the while holding one hand on your horn and steering wheel and the other giving a one fingered salute.
You eventually decide that waiting for the guy to get off the road is most probably a good idea because you know within 5 minutes you will be on a 3-lane-wide main road in which you will be able to overtake the guy at 80 whilst he’s still doing 50. You tailgate this 4 foot, balding, head-super-close-to-the-steering-wheel asshole for the next five minutes, supressing the urge to smash into his right-back-side and spin him out of control so you can get to the damn bank, regardless of how much damage it would do to your 1986 Holden VL.
Finally you reach the main road! Only, most of the people on it think that it’s Sunday and drive like it’s a national day of mourning. You decide sticking to the speed limit is a good idea, since the cop in the left lane probably wouldn’t aid your cause if you decided to break the speed limit. You hang back, just behind the cop and in the lane next to him. Overtaking him is, to him, seen as a threat and he’ll probably pull you over for that bald front-left tyre and absolutely atrocious music you were playing. Eventually the cop turns off to the left and you carry on your merry way to the bank.
You reach the carpark. It is full. There are people in no rush what so ever holding the trolley with one hand and scolding their feral kids as they dawdle across the car park in front of you. Honestly, who would win? Your VL or a crappy aluminium trolley? They move off to the side and you plant your foot, but only enough for the wheels to spin for two seconds, and take a sharp left into the next column of the car park. You spy a park but some asshole’s already waiting and the guy pulling out of it doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing it any time this week. You look at the clock, mocking you from it’s position on your dashboard slowly ticking away, 11:18. You take the next column of parking and find that there’s not one, but TWO spots free. You don’t care what’s coming from what direction, you smack the indicator arm up and turn the wheel and park your car.
You enter the shopping centre and, since it’s a shopping centre you haven’t been in lately, you look for a map. There isn’t one, of course, so you walk around looking for this bloody bank and eventually stumble into it. The highly-motivated (read: not) employee on the other side of the inch thick plastic gives a mumbled “hello” and you mention that you would like to deposit some coins into your bank account. “Can I have your card please?” she asks. You hand her the card and then start taking the coins out of your bag. Once you’re done you zip up the bag and look up, only to meet with the iciest stare, you’re stopping her from going home. She weighs up whether or not to take your coinage and pelt you with it or to count it up. She decides that it’s not worth the effort to cause you bodily harm so she carries it all over to the little weighing machine they have. She weighs it all up and says that some of the bags didn’t have the right amount of coinage in it and the total was only $119.90. You mention you have one more order of business and as you reach into your bag you can just make out a sigh coming from the direction of the teller. You produce a piece of paper with all the account details on it for the international bank account and vaguely mention you want an IBAN number. She tells you that there is no way to work out an IBAN number from that information.
You leave the bank disappointed. You come home and google “IBAN Hong Kong Calculator” and find that there [url=http://creativeeyes.at/tools/iban]is a site that actually works out IBANs for you[/url] and you use that. You phone up the number again, this time knowing what to do to get a human to talk to you faster only to be told you can’t transfer money internationally because they don’t do that on the weekend.