Buying stamps at the Post Office

In the UK, in my youth, Post Offices were like Government outposts. They were a place to cash your dole giro, sort out your passport, renew your driving licence, buy road tax or get a postal order. You could even post a letter there. I suspect that, nowadays, lots of young people hardly ever enter a Post Office. In Spain the Post Offices have never had the same import as they once did in the UK but, for me at least, they are still one of the places to send and receive cards, letters and packets. 

At the start of each year the stamp prices go up in Spain. Quite a steep rise this year. The price to send a letter or card depends on the size and shape of the envelope as well as the weight. In fact I only really use the post for birthday and Christmas cards and as cards almost always come in non standard sizes (C5 and DL are considered standard) with jolly red or green envelopes I get charged the "non normalised" rate even though the weight is under the 20g limit. The cost of a normalised national stamp is 75c or 85c for the non normalised. For stuff to the UK and most of Europe it's 1.65€ and 1.95€.

The queue in the Pinoso Post Office is usually enough to put off anyone who doesn't have serious business at the counter. For that reason I generally buy my stamps from the only other place they are on sale, in the licensed tobacconists, the estancos. This morning though as I passed the Post Office with my first card of the new year to post there was no queue so I went in. I asked for 10 stamps at 1.95€. As I half expected I was told that no such stamp existed. OK then I'll have 10 at 1.85€ (obviously as that's the  "base rate" European international stamp, it would be available) and 10 for 10 cents please. I was told that they had neither. The conversation went on for a while longer. I asked what smaller stamps they sold so that stamps could be combined to make up the required postage. Basically the answer was none. In fact they weren't keen to sell me stamps at all. They want you stand in their queue so that they can print out a sticker of the required value presumably to avoid under stamped letters. This is, after all, the same Post Office that bricked up the post box outside their building so that it's only possible to post a letter when the office is open. By now the stamp conversation had become a little tense. I was a tad annoyed. I raised my voice. That might have been the reason they magicked up some sort of presentation packs of 5 stamps that don't show a cash value but are printed with the letters A and B instead. The A type are for normalised, under 20g national stamps. The type B are for international. Heaven knows why they didn't offer me those at the start.

I've said before that Post Office queues are only rivalled in lentitude by bank queues. The banks have been getting it in the neck from a campaign mounted by older people against the withdrawal of counter services. It's not just rural areas that have lost banks. Several branches have closed in the cities too partly because of the myriad bank mergers and partly because of the growth of online banking services. Banks, strapped for cash a couple of years ago, their obscene profits at times wobbling into losses, went for the easy target of people like you and me. They introduced substantial maintenance charges as well as charging for basic services, like cash withdrawal from machines. There are even fees for using counter services. Even if you were happy to go through the hassle of changing banks to avoid these charges you'd often find that, behind the headline "No Commission" banner, there were hidden charges for everyday transactions. Even at the counters there were limitations on what sort of operations could be carried out at what times. 

Many older Spanish people still have bank books. If the hole in the wall wouldn't accept their book they would queue for counter services only to be told that there was a charge for whatever service they wanted. Sometimes they were told that whatever they wanted to do couldn't be done at that time or that they would need to telephone for an appointment. Under the slogan of "Soy mayor, no idiota" or I'm old not an idiot, a 78 year old retired doctor collected signatures, via change dot org, to try to force the banks to look after their customers better. On the day that he went to Madrid to hand over his petition he literally bumped into a Government Minister coming out of the same building. She made the right sort of supportive sounds as the press cameras clicked away. The day after the Santander Bank announced that it would be extending its opening times.

Maybe I should think of a campaign to demand satisfaction from Post Offices. I'm old but you're idiots perhaps?

Unexpected effort and unexpected success

We are going to have a cut down version of the Pinoso Fiestas next week. Less than usual but much better than nothing. Well done Pinoso!

The various conditions to keep the concert type events safe means that the audience for any events has to be controlled and that involves tickets. Most of the events are free so the tickets are called invitations but, nonetheless, you need to have one in your hand to get to see or hear the event. We've had to get the same sort of thing for months, and nearly years, now at lots of venues but mostly the bookings have been possible online. That wasn't the case for Pinoso. 

As well as the fiesta events next week there was a concert by a local choir yesterday and the town band have a concert today. I got the band tickets by going to their office one afternoon. A bit of a trek but easy enough. I went to ask at the Cultural Centre about the choir concerts at the beginning of the month and I was told I was too early. I tried, unsuccessfully, on two separate occasions later in the month to get the invites. The main problem was that nobody seemed exactly sure when and where I should go to get the tickets. In fact, on the night, there were tickets on the door and the space for the outdoors concert was enormous so it was dead easy to keep our distance. The audience capacity of the venue was much, much greater than the size of the audience.

To get the fiesta tickets I went to the Town Hall at the beginning of last week and I was told they would be available later and that there would be an announcement on one of the various online channels that the Town Hall uses. I saw no announcements but I went back anyway a few days later to find a long queue for tickets. The local mayor and the councillor responsible for fiestas were handing out the tickets. A bit extemporised or what? I waited about 20 minutes and got tickets for two of the three events I wanted. The process was inevitably slow because they were taking names and phone numbers just in case there was a need to follow up after an outbreak. For the tickets for the third event I was told to come back tomorrow. Tomorrow was Friday. On Friday I was told Monday. No queue the second time at least.

This is how it always used to be in Spain. Things having to be done face to face. Often you needed "inside" information to be more successful. Nowadays it's not usually the case. Even in Pinoso I was able to get tickets at least one event, a theatre performance, during the fiestas, online.

Yesterday evening, late, I realised my bank card wasn't in my wallet. Pit of the stomach feeling. I searched high and low. Not a sign. My banking app told me there were no dodgy movements and it was easy to suspend the card using the same app. It seemed though that I needed to phone someone to definitely cancel the card and go to a branch to get another one. I tried the free-phone number to report the loss and got a message to say there was a fault with the number and to try later. The extra stumbling block, after psyching myself up for the call, was most unwelcome. Spanish on the phone still can't be counted amongst my strengths. I went back to the website to check how to cancel and renew lost cards. They had a video. I clicked here. I clicked there. Within seconds the website tells me that I've successfully cancelled the card and a new one is on its way. The process I expected to be difficult, and was the last time I did it, was easy peasy whilst something I'd expect to be a piece of cake, getting a couple of event tickets, took eight visits. 

Such, as they say, is Life in Culebrón.

Banking on it

My bank sent me a letter, well there was a message on the website, to say that I should ensure that they held the correct details on me. Apparently this was going to help them combat money laundering. I can see that. Anyway the documentation said I was a teacher and, as I have an official looking certificate to say that I am in receipt of a Spanish State Pension, I thought it would be easy to do.

Going into a Spanish bank requires time. A lot of time and the patience of a halo wearer. I very seldom have to go to a branch but, yesterday, I did. There was the usual confusion about which desk to use - not a linguistic confusion. In this case, four desks, three of which seemed willing to deal with people and one of which seemed to be doing something on his computer which may have been high finance or he could have been playing Fornite Battle Royale. I behaved like a good Spaniard, I staked my place in the general queue for the cash desk, just in case it was there, then I asked the spare man where to queue. "Any of the desks there," he said, pointing vaguely. "No, not that line, either of those two,"  he said, "Oh, no, sorry, just with the woman". I bantered with the other customers about how useful it would be to have a desk that said Information or maybe a sign that said this desk for blahdy blah and that for whatchamacallit.

I got to the front of the queue. "Easy peasy," said the woman, "Do you have any proof that you're a pensioner?" I produced the certificate and she beamed. No problem for her about it being a British pension. No problem because I had no proof. Those Chechen money launderers should get one. She started to tap tap tap on her computer. The tapping got harder. "¡No va!," she said. It doesn't go, it's not working. She complained about computers and I sympathised. She tried time after time. I looked over my shoulder and wondered about the queuing time for the people furthest from the desk. "Do you have any errands to do?," she asked. "I can ring you when it comes back on".

So I did the supermarket shop and I drank two cups of coffee and read a chapter of Viaje al corazón de España, Journey to the heart of Spain. Well over an hour, closer to 90 minutes. I went back to the bank. "No", she said, "I told you I'd ring." She phoned about ten minutes later. For some reason the database didn't want to just change teacher to pensioner it also wanted my ID number, my phone number, my inside leg measurement and my preference in chocolate biscuits. The address proved tricky. Despite copying out the address that was on the letter they'd sent, the address they held for me, the computer repeatedly said no. I noticed the mistake this morning, some twenty hours after it would have been useful. The woman knows how to spell and wrote Caserío but the database didn't and wanted Caserio. Do you see the difference? It happens a lot. Spanish programs use accents -á,é,í, ó,ú, ü and ñ - but US and UK type programs don't. She got round it by basically inventing an address. Then I signed two or three documents and, after only a little over two and a half hours my documentation was up to date and my money laundering days were over.

There was going to be something much more important and much more terrifying later in the day but I'm not going to share that on the blog!

Confucius it ain't

In fact it was the English poet Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie who said "All things come to those who wait." In my case what came, after a wait of 12 years, was a branch of my bank in my home town.

You may wonder why that's a bonus. The root of the problem is that we still use a lot of cash in rural Spain. Spanish banks like to charge for services and you can avoid some of those by using your own bank. There's nearly always a maintenance fee unless you pay in over a certain amount each month and there can be charges for both paying in and for withdrawals.

I originally banked with the Caja Murcia, a savings bank, obviously enough, centred on Murcia. Murcia is pretty far to the right on the map of Spain and Ciudad Rodrigo is on the left, or if you prefer the technical term, the West, butting up against Portugal. I moved there in 2007. Not surprisingly there weren't a lot of Caja Murcia branches. The costs of taking money out of non Caja Murcia bank machines was mounting up so I opened an account with Banesto which was a national rather than regional set up. They had a branch in Ciudad Rodrigo and another in Pinoso. But the bank system in Spain was just about to teeter on the edge of total collapse. Banks and savings banks got bought and sold, merged and closed left right and centre. By the time I moved back home to Culebrón the Banesto had become the Santander and the branch in Pinoso had closed.

My nearest Santander was 15 kilometres from home which was, occasionally, a nuisance. Then, in June 2017, the Santander bought the Banco Popular. There was a branch of the Popular in Pinoso. Good I thought, only a matter of time. I should have known. No particular rush. This week the bank finally became the Santander. So, for the first time since 2007, I have a branch of my bank in my home town.

Clowns

I still have a UK bank account. Last November my bank, the HSBC, asked me to prove that I was who I said I was and that I lived where I said I lived.

I thought the whole process was ridiculous but I have learned docility over the years so I set about jumping through their hoops. By grinning at a webcam as I showed my passport they were happy to accept that I was me. Proving where I live has been a little more difficult.

Now we're not going to talk about the fact that they have been posting things to me at this address for years or that the original account with them was opened in around 1972 and has been at the same branch since 1979. We won't dwell on the fact that, whilst the need for the bank to verify the address of their customers is an external regulatory requirement, the process for collecting the data is purely up to the bank. No, we're going to accept the possibility that I may be the front man for a Serbian money launderer and that this process is not a fatuous waste of time and money.

I've mentioned before that rural Spanish addresses are a bit hit and miss. Living, as I do, in the 21st Century most of my bills are paperless anyway so precision of the address isn't important. I can obviously print the bills out from the computer but the bank wanted originals sent through the post. They also wanted bills with EXACTLY the same address as the one they had on their records. As chance would have it none of my bills have that exact address.

I have talked to several people at the bank over the months. Most of them have been perfectly pleasant. They were often quite human, quite flexible. In fact last Autumn  I was told to forget the whole process until I got a letter from the UK tax people in April. When I got a tax coding that set the whole rigmarole in train again. There have been a lot of phone calls, secure messages and emails since then. The bank hasn't been moving quickly though. Between one question and an answer I had to wait over two months for a reply. Today, after another lengthy phone call and lots of blether the solution that my customer care team representative came up with was to change my address on the HSBC website so that it matched the one on my phone bill.

The woman didn't seem to grasp the contradiction of the suggestion. In order to prove that my address was real I needed to change it. I didn't argue too much though. After all it's an easy fix.

So, now my phone bill address and the address the HSBC holds are the same. All I have to do is to get our local notary to certify the bill as real before sending it back to the UK. That done the HSBC will be able to sleep soundly knowing that their records are accurate.

There was though a teensy weensy potential stumbling block. The HSBC wanted the notary to use a particular form of words - I, [full name of certifier], confirm this is an accurate copy of the original. I pointed out to the HSBC that a document written in English wouldn't have any legal validity in Spain and that the notary may be unwilling to certify anything using a foreign langauge. The bank were suitably imperialistic about the need to use English.

And guess what the Notary said? We can validate the phone bill but not in English. I told them to go ahead anyway. When it's done I'll shove the confirmation in the envelope and send it back to Harry Weston road in Coventry and wait for the next round of negotiations.

A cashless society

Going into a bank in Spain is often the proverbial pain in whatchamacallit. I don't have to do it often. Cash comes from holes in the wall and most things get dealt with on cards or online. If I do have to go into a bank I always think it looks as though the clerks have never dealt with this particular procedure before. It's all a bit slow, a bit ponderous and there are always multiple documents to be signed.

We have a few banks in Pinoso but there isn't a branch of my bank, the Santander. There is an office with a big sign outside that says Santander and I once foolishly supposed that I could go there to pay in money. I can't. A bit like the wrong type of snow, on the railway, I have the wrong sort of account. It was originally opened with a bank that was later absorbed by the Santander. The name of the account has changed at least four times since then but, apparently, it still bears some Mark of Cain which makes it inferior to a proper Santander account. Whatever reason the man in the office in Pinoso cannot put folding money into my account. I have had trouble with the other banks too. They simply don't offer services to other bank's customers. Some will take my money off me and pay it into my account but they charge several euros to do it.

I had a period of being paid in cash and, to avoid charges, I would drive to the nearest branch of my bank in Monóvar, about 15 kilometres away. The process was simple enough but the wait could be mind bendingly long. At least I learned not to be coy about using the Spanish queuing technique of asking who was the last person in the bank so that I knew when it would be my turn. Spaniards do not, generally, care for the one in front of the other British queue.

At work, for reasons, I was paid with a cheque. I last saw a cheque in Spain about ten years ago so I wasn't sure what to do with it. I took it to the issuing bank and asked. Well, first I waited for about twenty five minutes before I got to speak to anyone. The two cashiers dealt with a total of three people, in front of me, in that time. I showed the teller the cheque;

"Can I pay this in to my account?"
"Of course you can."

So, I asked her to do it. She explained that she meant that if I drove to my bank and queued there then I could pay it in myself. She did say that her colleague could give me cash for it though. So I went back to waiting. I handed over the cheque and asked for cash. I was asked for ID and the man made some huffing and puffing noise when I handed over the A4 piece of paper that is my official ID document. It's been in my wallet for a long time and it looks a lot like those remnants of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then he asked me for photo ID. This is all pretty normal. Everybody in the world seems entitled to ask me to prove that I'm who I say I am so I wasn't phased. I handed over my passport and asked if he'd prefer something Spanish, like my driving licence. He said he would. He asked me if I were resident and I suggested that a Spanish driving licence and a residence certificate may be a clue. He gawped at the computer screen for a while, made a copy of my passport, got me to sign two bits of paper and then, the part I really liked, bearing in mind that we are now closing in on 45 minutes.

"You shouldn't use cheques, you know, they involve a lot of bureaucracy."
"And is that my fault?," I snapped back, in Spanish.

He'd been condescendingly talking to me in English despite the fact that I addressed him in Spanish. He responded in Spanish that time. He assured me that I was not responsible for whatever process the Caixa Bank had agreed with who knows what supranational banking system and handed over the few euros that the cheque was worth.

Sometimes there are still reminders of the years that Spain stagnated while the rest of Europe moved forwards.