My hellish experience with bank was a reminder that there’s no substitute for human contact - Sarah Todd

By the time we noticed the message and went onto the banking app to say ‘this isn’t us’ the money literally vanished before our very eyes. We watched helplessly as the balance plummeted into an overdraft we hadn’t used for years.

The twist that added insult to injury was it was recorded as having been transferred out of this joint fund with The Husband into this correspondent’s business account; held with another bank.

Then, it all started to get even scarier. Of course, there was no human being to speak to at the business bank and the only option was to try and freeze the money through online banking.

Turns out, these criminals - that is a polite word for them - had hacked into my mobile phone account and ordered a digital sim card to use in their own device. This meant the actual person who had worked for the money in the account (little old me) couldn’t get access to it. The bank didn’t recognise my phone - the lowlife had got the number - and there seemed no way of getting through to stop this second account being emptied.

While this red-head was climbing the walls in frustration, The Husband had finally got hold of a real-life person at the first bank and found out that the money was actually in a ‘pending’ account and hadn’t been sent over yet.

What a relief. But just goes to prove what old miseries like this columnist have been saying for years, that there is nothing to beat an actual person in some institutions such as a bank.

That no matter what people say and however much they patronise us that ‘digital is best’ it blooming well isn’t.

The following morning the beginning of a process which seemed to take about 48 hours to speak to somebody who understood what had happened at the mobile phone provider started.

It was the company’s fault. They had given out this digital sim card to a fraudster.

Hours of life that we will never get back were spent pressing numbers on the telephone and then holding and talking to goodness knows how many call centre workers in India. They wouldn’t help because it wasn’t the number registered on the account but the landline. “Well, it’s not because somebody out there has got it - that is what this call is about.”

As an aside, an appointment has had to be made with the hairdresser to get the grey hairs that appeared almost instantly sorted out.

It was a similar story at the business bank, because the mobile phone number was linked to the account it was like pulling teeth.

Now, somebody will write in and say this is a racist. It absolutely and utterly isn’t. It is a common sense comment. What a relief when finally, dozens of calls later, a lad in the UK - sounded like a Manchester accent - was got through to.

There is something so very wrong that these companies have people all over the world who often have a very poor grasp of English answering the calls of customers who are worried and in desperate need of help and reassurance.

The whole process meant those fraudsters got an extra day to do their worst. Touch wood, they didn’t. But they could have had another trick up their sleeve while the hoops were jumped through to raise the fraud alarm.

Both banks have told this customer to ‘re-download’ their mobile phone apps. Not on your nelly. The business bank doesn’t have a local branch and that is no good either. An alternative that does is going to be found. How much easier the whole sorry story would have been to have gone into a bank and talked to somebody.

Hell will freeze over before anybody can convince this at-the-end-of-her-tether writer that removing people we can go and talk to in person from the customer service chain is progress.

Cash needs to be campaigned for and protected like the endangered species it is and any shop, pub or restaurant owner that turns their noses up can jog on when it comes to getting any repeat business.

Tomorrow, this account holder will be withdrawing from the hole-in-the-wall as much as her debit card will allow. Best double check the hairdresser still takes it...