An obscenity-free open letter to the manager of Lloyds Bank, Covent Garden

As you know  many firms block swear-words so as not to offend their staff, who have never heard them as they never watch TV or go to the movies. So you may not have seen the original of this, which began as follows

May I explain why I – and I bet quite a few others – would like to blow up your head office after chopping your grasping, witless directors into tiny, blood-stained morsels?

I should confess now that the title of this piece is a little tongue-in-cheek, as I am sure managers were abolished years ago.

Yesterday your Fraud Prevention people rang my office about some suspicious transactions in New York. It seems someone had been trying to take money out of my account.

They were right. It was me.

My inability to do so despite presenting a passport and having plenty of dosh in your coffers convinced me that the average panda could run your bank better than the grossly overpaid buffoons who run Lloyds do.

But let me elaborate.

35 years ago I opened an account at your bank. I didn’t choose you for a reason. I assumed you were much the same as other banks – not too bright. You just happened to be convenient.

For a time your bank was my customer, as I introduced you to the joys of direct marketing. You were a hopeless bunch, but I hope to God I gave you better service that you have given me.

Come to think of it, I guess you work for me in another way, as with other taxpayers I helped to bail you out four years ago at the suggestion of that megalomaniac creep Gordon Brown.

For a while during our relationship I was quite rich – what they call a “valued customer” in badly written direct mail.

However your bank has never shown the slightest inclination to appreciate my business or loyalty, but that’s alright – I don’t expect you to be normal human beings. Nor has it shown even the vaguest sign of competence. But things have now reached a stage where I fear we must part.

This is because you are increasingly showing signs of almost unbelievable stupidity, which came to a head with that phone call this morning.

Before going further, I just want to make sure you have a database lying around there.

You do? Good. You haven’t lost it up someone’s ****? You’re sure?

Then if you consult it you will see that for the last 13 years, about five times every year, I have gone to New York. And when I go to New York – this is going to surprise you – I need money.

Where do you go when you need money?

To an ATM, right?

Me too.

Now one thing your database could do if any of the halfwits in charge knew their job it is make a record of what each customer does so you could serve that customer better. It takes seconds. There is probably a program that does it automatically.

This would note that year after year Drayton Bird goes to the same damn banks in the same areas of New York to get money out, and stop you ****ing him about.

But they are unemployable.

So just to allow for this, yesterday I took my passport into first one bank, then another, then another.

But not one would honour my debit card.

Do you know how it is in New York when you can’t get money?

As it happens I walk by your big headquarters building in Bristol frequently because it is near where my partner works at an infinitely better run financial services firm.

What the hell are you all doing in there? Giving each other b***-jobs?

Anyhow, I think it’s time to find another bank.

But isn’t it interesting to think that if there really were a manager at your bank, he or she would never let this kind of s*** happen?