Letter to the Internet
The internet is driving me insane. The need to check my bank account. I can’t get on to see if my money is still there. This may appear irrational when I am the only person in with all the codes and pins and passwords, but a few days ago I found my account down by £175. Withdrawn by Amazon for a purchase I did not make.
Fraud. There was no doubt I had not purchased a watch from Japan to be sent to my niece at an address she last frequented when a student, several years ago in a city 200 miles away from where she now lives. Consequently Amazon account closed. Money refunded. Inconvenient wait for erratic postal system to deliver new card.
Add to that my mail being attacked by ‘phishing’ and the subsequent absence of debit card for three weeks in a country several thousand miles from home, when I had just arrived and had NO income.
Random cart in HCMC
Throw in said newly received card being eaten by an ATM one evening, when I was due to be at work in ten minutes in a newly acquired job. This was ‘pre riding a motorbike’ times and I barely had the cash for a cab fare to work, and certainly none to get home. There followed a, now, not then, hilarious interchange of conversations. My mobile phone being passed from person to person, outside the phone booth like box which house ATMs in Vietnam. One by one, even two by two they peered into the booth looking for numbers or notes. Speaking in a language which could have been classical music for all my unaccustomed ear could comprehend.
Shoe Repair Stall
I had phoned my new employer and told them there was no way I was leaving the ‘box’ until I had my card back! May be a little hysterical. Despite the mayhem and confusion. Conversations between me and employer, employer and bank, employer and the, oh I am so grateful to you, general public of Ho Chi Minh, codes and information were eventually found. I was reassured that my card would be retrieved the next day. That it would not be sent back to the UK. That I could collect it at 1pm, precisely.
Park life
And, that is what happened. Escorted to bank by my more than supportive new Vietnamese employer my card was fished from a shoebox of others on production of my passport.
Fish for sale
So internet gremlins, watchdogs, filters, blockers or simply bad connections, you can stop me uploading photos, restrict my access to Facebook, but I really would like to check my online banking.
……..ps…..make that message to my building internet. Just checked required account elsewhere .. all is fine. No more theft or fraud, and added are a few random pictures – just because I can.
