TO: Gavin Watts, Bank of Qld

Dear Mr Watts,

For a manager of customer relations, you are most disappointing. I have your totally irrelevant letter of 11th. I asked for an explanation, not a legal argument.

Please try again. You ARE allowed to think, you know. You have shown you can use italics. See if you can do more.

Absent an intelligent response from you I will have to refer the matter to the Banking Ombudsman. He is generally sympathetic to requests for information and explanation

TO: Chair, Bank of Qld

Dear Mr Roberts,

I was today once again foolish enough to use a BOQ service. It looks like I am going to have a lot to raise at the next AGM.

I went in to your Stones Corner branch and arranged for a "telegraphic transfer" of some money to a UK account.

How long would YOU think a "telegraphic transfer" would take to go through? Silly little people like me would think that it would be like the internet -- instantaneous.

But NO! I was told it would take "several days"

Please explain

TO: V.C. Dougherty, MD staff, BOQ

Dear Ms Dougherty

Thank you for your letter of 11th.

May I suggest that there is a simple way for the bank not to be called "boneheads"? Don't act that way.

Apropos of that I would like to ask you just one question:

Why was I allowed to transfer $5,000 out of my account one day without a token but next day I was allowed to transfer not one cent? Certainly not $5,000.

You can guess what I think of that great and unexpected inconvenience to which you subjected me.

I think a policy change on that is clearly called for. Don't you?

Your absurdly complex token system has simply persuaded me that I should no longer keep significant funds in my BOQ account. I was for some time keeping substantial funds there for the sake of convenience but since you have taken the convenience away I have taken the funds away.

TO: Chair, Bank of Qld

Dear Mr Roberts,

I must be a hero of persistence. Once again I have been victimized by gross BOQ stupidity. You have sometimes been able to help in the past so I am alerting you to this matter too.

I have been accustomed to using internet banking on my A/c 90-REDACTED. Transfers to other banks are however limited to $5000. So I put in to raise the limit to $15,000. The new limit was approved.

End of story? No way! Not with the boneheaded BOQ. Now I cannot transfer ANYTHING at all! The upgrade has turned into a severe inconvenience. I am told that I now have to go into a branch to get a new password or otherwise get stuffed.

I am going in alright -- to draw out all my money

Yours Incredulously

Re: Chq A/c 90-XXXXXX [Number given in original letter]

Dear Sirs/Mesdames

I note that the Bankcard attached to the above A/c has gone "poof" at some stage.

Please issue me with a replacement card of some sort

Do NOT ask me to fill out any forms. I have already filled out enough forms for two lifetimes. Seeing you made credit available to me for many years, you ALREADY have enough info to issue me with a new card.

I understand that a refusal to fill out forms will throw your bureaucratic mind into a tizz so perhaps you should pass this letter onto your department for dealing with high net worth individuals. The dividends flowing into my cheque A/c would tell an intelligent person that my share portfolio is worth over a million dollars

TO: Neil Roberts, CHAIRMAN, BOQ

Dear Mr Roberts

Why does your bank make it so hard for your customers to use the internet? I have just spent half an hour on the phone to your staff trying to find out how to use the internet to make money transfers from my account and could not get past a bonehead called Jason who had all the helpfulness of a cracked record and who refused to put me on to anyone else with more brains. Everybody else was "in a meeting", allegedly. I do wish you would instruct your staff to stop using that threadbare lie when talking to customers. He promised to get someone more senior to ring me back but that too was the usual fraud. So I am writing to you. Why I should have to is beyond me but it seems the only thing to do that offers some chance of an intelligent response.

My A/c is 90 REDACTED and I have long ago set up my transfer limit as you require. Why you require that is also beyond me. I have a Commonwealth Bank A/c that put no such obstacle in front of me.

When I logged on to your internet site, however, and clicked "transfer to anyone", I got a page that had no means of entering to whom I wanted to make the transfer. A window dropped down but I could not type anything into it.

I therefore rang your helpline and asked what I had to do to enter a payee but your Jason refused to tell me unless I had a confirmation code. As far as I know I threw away the code as soon as I had entered it into your system as required.

In summary:
1). You put up stupid obstacles to transfers
2). Your computer system does not do what it says
3). Your staff refuse to help

And you claim that your bank is particularly customer-oriented! Please investigate and advise.

TO: John Nilas, Customer Relations, BOQ

Dear Mr Nilas

Thank you for your letter of 14th April. You must be an escapee from the Public Service. The message in your letter very clearly is: "There's no reason for it. It's just policy" Do you really think I or anybody else is going to be happy with that response to a complaint? I have pointed out two idiotic policies of the bank (No names on receipts and the barring of credit-card payments of fees) WITH THE GENERAL IDEA THAT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER CHANGING THEM. And if you are too wooden for that, you could at least have the courtesy to explain to me the wonderful wisdom behind the existing policies.

You must WANT shareholders to embarrass your chairman at the AGM