Crossing the channel...

[Tim Streater]

I've not had this problem with the Barclay's ones.

[Robin]

And Santander

[Richard]

Don't be like that. You either did not know, or neglected to mention the fact. In future try to be more polite and thank the individual.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You're going to drive non stop across the channel? Good on you.

[Tim Ward]

I do - having driven across the bridge to get to Gatwick, and then flown to your destination, the web site won't let you pay from abroad.

[Tim Ward]

Well, there's two reasons I didn't do that:

(1) I'd been able to pay in cash last time I'd been that way (2) Setting up an account is far too much faff for something I'm likely to do once a decade, if that.

[charles]

NatWest in Guildford - not a large city (actually not even a city) - has recenty got new machines which are a lot better than the old ones.

[Huge]

And that at least is a reasonable complaint.

[Robin]

That is rather boggling. Was it the current site/system?

[Terry Casey]

Nationwide BS have ATMs that accept cheques.

[Terry Casey]

Or you can do it by phone while you are waiting to board your ferry or shuttle at Dover ...

[Terry Casey]

But you can pay by phone when you get to Gatwick - or your destination.

And if you do set up an account you don't need to put money into it (as you did with the previous system) - it just takes the fee direct from your bank account. So no crossings - no payments.

[charles]

but you should have head the best part of 2 hours at Gatwick. Plenaty of time to arrange payment before you leave the UK. You could also pay in advance - before you leave home.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

18:27:34 on Wed, 4 Jul 2018, Terry Casey remarked:

If you can navigate the user interface (having waited in a queue). I often see the less technically literate being hand-held through using the Nationwide ATMs by a roving staff member.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

18:34:45 on Wed, 4 Jul 2018, Terry Casey remarked:

All of this is 100x the faff of simply throwing a couple of coins in a ban.

[Tim Ward]

Um, if I'm at Gatwick I'm trying to get onto a plane, I'm not being side-tracked by someone else's desire for me to spend time on their bureaucracy. And even if you could pay by making a phone call this was before the days of abolition of roaming charges so I wasn't going to pay for an international phone call.

Quite likely true. But as I had no way of knowing that before my last crossing, and it's likely to be several years before I cross again, by which time any such account should have automatically closed itself, not very useful.

[Tim Ward]

No idea. It was three or four years ago, I haven't tried it since.

[charles]

you normally have at least an hour between passing through security and going to the departure gate. Yes, a phone call would cut down on your shopping time, but it wouldn't stop you getting on your plane.

[Tim Ward]

Yeah, right. Find and queue and pay for a computer,l whilst at the same time queuing to check in or queuing for security or queuing to get some food ... FFS.

I say again, I didn't know before leaving home that I couldn't pay cash any more - how would I have known that?

[Tim Streater]

That's inevitable initially. And I, too, was helped a couple of times, even when not actually needed.