hunt for the silver lining

Yesterday was an eventful day for me.

My Ma wakes me up in the morning to tell me to be very careful as she the whole night had seen bad dreams about me. I usually am a believer of omens but was so busy with work that I totally forgot about this.

In the evening when I come home I find my wallet missing. In my case my wallet contains all my credit cards, debit cards, driver's license and club membership cards. Whats even best I dint have the credit nor debit card numbers with me.

So there starts a series of phone calls to block all credit and debit cards. My experience with HSBC was one to leave such a bitter taste that I am off that bank. Not only do they go on repeating N raise to infinity number of times that the bank is not responsible in terms of loss but also hassle in terms of procedure for blocking. They spend time reconfirming that I have lost the card and repeating everything I had just confirmed for records.

I spend some 18 minutes to block my card and was dreading what lay ahead.

Well as they say after bitter is sweet, so thats what was my experience with ICICI, Manhattan and Citibank. All of them taken together dint take 18 minutes and we are talking of credit and debit cards with these banks. In fact at the end of the call the way each of these Customer care execs expressed their sorry was really touching. I felt it was like a buddy saying she really can understand how miserable I must be feeling.

When in agony if a bank adds on to my woe instead of helping a customer then they really need a 360 deg look into their approach. When in a Service sector the customer comes first in todays world. I did send in a stinker mail to HSBC and I really dont care for a response as once an experience goes bitter during time of need then the trust is totally gone.

And that is one thing (trust) once broken can never be repaired with Time nor efforts. The band aid marks will always remind you of the harm done.

I then started hunting for the silver lining in my cloud.. that was the only way i could cheer myself up..

The silver lining to my cloud : I could block all my cards and learned my lesson the hard way .. never carry all your cards and keep a xerox of all your cards. lucky to have friend to rely on during distress and family that just by being there helps.

But God you could have said this to me in a kinder way for eg hiding my wallet somewhere and then give it back to me ..simple na.. you too like to get in to who is the boss mode.