Embarrassment of losing my ATM card has been compounded by 15-day freeze

There are certain company policies that make eminent sense. There are others that make a degree of sense within prescribed limits. Then there are the downright absurd. It has been my misfortune of late to have encountered the latter at the most starchly august of institutions - a major Chinese bank.

Like several people I know, I left an ATM with the cash I had requested but not the card, which was swallowed up within 10 seconds. It was a couple of days later I realized I was no longer in possession of that nondescript but essential piece of plastic that helps the world go round these days. Inevitably, the surprise came in the excruciating situation of paying the bill after a romantic dinner. My companion had to ride to my fiscal rescue on her white steed. My ego took a dent of Titanic proportions and my face put ripe tomatoes to shame.

I wasn't sure which machine I had let swallow my card, or even whether I had actually lost it; so I reported it missing the following morning at the local branch of my bank.

As I trudged to work, pondering the tedious news that I would be issued a new card in 15 days, I remembered the last time this happened (come on, it was two years ago and, as I said, I'm not the only one). I recalled on that occasion they let me withdraw cash using my yellow bankbook. I cheered up a little and the following day returned with said document in order to pad out my wallet with some red notes.

After interminable tapping on the computer, the teller summoned the duty manager, who said with the biggest smile I've seen in China that my account was frozen until the end of the 15-day purdah. Now I know Chinese and English smiles are as dissimilar as pounds and yuan, but my cultural sensitivities had been holed below the water by the realization that unless something could be done I would be penniless for two weeks - or should that be yuanless?

"That's my money in there. You know it's my money. Why can't you let me have some of it now?" I asked, perhaps a tad too petulantly. "It's our bank policy," the man replied.

"It's my money," I countered, raising the petulance a notch. "Yes, but it's frozen. We will keep it safe for you until the account is no longer frozen. Wait until new card here," he beamed back.

"This isn't funny," I said, crossing the border from petulance to the sort of anger a bull develops when it sees red. "Are you saying you will let my starved corpse have all that money in two weeks? There's not even enough to pay for my funeral. What good will that do?"

"I know it's not funny. It's our bank policy," said the man I'd now nicknamed "Smiley", who was getting patronizing at this foreigner's inability to understand that policy is policy and rules cannot be broken. By now the security guard was taking an interest, no doubt alerted to the change in banking tempo from the sedate to the closing-time barroom argument.

I recognize the fine details of brick walls - especially Great Brick Walls - when I encounter them. There have been so many in 30 years of journalism. I knew when I was defeated. I left. I would like to say I stormed out, shouting about the injustice, the sheer stupidity of red tape and ill-thought-out policy. Instead I drew on the school of angry mutterings for my exit.

I'm still simmering as I write this. I am visualizing some cheap-suited apparatchik at the bank's headquarters drawing up this particular policy, either unaware or uncaring about the effect it could have on those who are suddenly and arbitrarily deprived of access to their hard-earned money.

Is it any wonder bankers are held in very low esteem by the majority of people? They live in a different universe. Maybe it's all that easy access to bundles of loot that deprives them of any sensitivity to its value.

What really gets me is that apparently a job at my bank is one of the most sought-after by graduates. What sort of society have we created?

The author is a copy editor for China Daily. To comment, e-mail metrobeijing@chinadaily.com.cn. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of METRO.

(China Daily 05/23/2011)