Mine, a very large Queensland financial institution, is bloody awful.

I have arranged to pay & pick up a purchase in Beaudesert Monday midday.

I rang the bank agency, a wholly owned insurance office in Beaudesert Wednesday morning to arrange $6,000 to be available in cash Monday morning.

Can't do that, too late to change next weeks cash order. 5 days for gods sake.

OK they are an inefficient bureaucratic bunch, I'll get the money from the Beenleigh branch, rather than stuff around.

Ops, no direct phone number for the branch, I'll have to ring the call centre. Four minutes of listening to computer offered choices, none of which suit my requirements, I am told I will have to wait 8 minutes or have them call back. I opt for the call back.

That comes 12 minutes later, with instructions to press No1 if I will accept the call. Guess what? Their computer can't detect my becoming frantic pressing of No1. It tells me it will ring back later. It does not in the next 3 hours.

I try the call centre, but it knows who I am, & advises it has booked a call back to me, & says good by, repeated when I try again.

Today the call centre does call me back, gives me the direct number for Beenleigh, & puts me through to them. After a couple of minutes ringing, a new computer tells me they are too busy to talk to me, & will call me back. They don't. This is repeated on my second call, but I actually get a human on my 3Rd try. She sounds a lovely lady, & arranges my cash for tomorrow.

So hopefully I have my cash just 55 kilometres from where I need it, & 3 days before I want it, after just 28 hours of annoyance.

This bunch of bureaucrats have already lost my insurance business, will they wonder or care why I change my accounts to Bendigo Bank, the only one which I can find that gives branch direct phone numbers on their web site.

Right you are, but if you must depend on the bank for $6,000 in cash without alternatives, then may I suggest that you are running too thin and are ill-prepared for when the bank(s) will collapse. Perhaps when you move to Bendigo Bank, you should keep some more at home.

Hasbeen,
Yes they do all they can to rip you off. Heres an example.

Recently we inquired at the CBA about investments and they gave us a pamphlet about an account that pays 1.5% on up to $50000, but 3.5% if you lodge over $50000. We were given some figures and when I checked, at home, I found their figures were lower than mine. Further maths revealed that they still only paid 1.5 on the first 50000 and the higher rate on that which was over 50000. So if someone had, say 60000 to invest they would only get the higher rate on 10000.

I call that deceit and I bet many have been caught by that. Oh, I did find a small disclaimer lower down. Needless to say they did not get our business.

Yuyutsu, if the stuff really hits the fan, & you can't get any of your money out of the bank, the paper stuff you are keeping at home won't be worth the paper it is printed on.

If you do have something likely to be of value in a real crunch, you'd be an idiot to use it for some minor ordinary living expenditure. Finding a transportable item that would hold it's value is difficult. A bit of paper saying you own gold in some vault somewhere is about as useful as bank notes in a real emergency.

It would be a bit hard to cash in gold bars, & no one would be too interested in art or jewellery.

A few hunting weapons & a lot of ammunition would be about the best investment, but I'm told they don't like burial too much.

Dear Hasbeen,

Between now and the real crunch there are many shades of grey - it won't come all at once.

In Greece for example, one could only take that little a day from the ATM, but those who held the Euros in advance at home or in overseas banks didn't lack a thing. Those in Cyprus who held their money at home (or in a safe that happened to be in the same bank-building) also didn't lose anything, certainly not those who held it in gold.

In the short term anyway, it looks like Europeans are going to invest quite a bit in Australian dollars as their banks introduce negative interest on their savings.

So far as preparing for the real thing, being vegetarian I wouldn't invest in hunting-guns, but durable raw food in bulk, sealed with nitrogen, a few barrels of petrol to be able to move it as necessary, plus a long list of sundry necessities, would probably be the best investment.

NOW you all know why countries including Australia are vigorously pushing for a cashless society.
1 Your money is locked in a bank then they introduce negative interest rates. (a few countries have them now you have to pay the bank to hold your money)
2 Everything you buy little public servant etc know about.
3 Travel to some places will be a joke if you can't take cash.
4 Your life is totally at the mercy of the Government they will be able to take your account or freeze it.
5 Hackers will have a field day with accounts.
6 The value of your money can be devalued in seconds with the press of a few keys on a computer.

Things a getting interesting monetary wise, supposedly all in the name of stopping terrorism and organized crime.

A few countries are in talks about the elimination the large denominated banknotes, Australia and US the $100' Europe the $500 note.