I am an unashamed credit card tart and recently I've been moving money around and closing down no-longer-used credit card accounts.

Nationwide: somewhat tedious time on hold on a Monday morning, but then very straightforward conversation lasting less than 3 minutes (including the security checks).

Sainsbury's Bank: No on-hold time at all this morning, but then having cleared security, I was passed to a separate department to "handle closures". What they actually mean is "try by hook or crook to prevent you closing". I went through several iterations of politely and firmly saying "thank you but I just want to close the account" until I reached "look, all I want to do is close the account, that's what I rang up to do and I don't appreciate this hard-sell approach at all", at which point he finally dropped it and finished the remaining faff quite quickly.

The chances of me EVER banking with Sainsbury's again are rapidly diminishing, especially after a couple of minor irritations while using them (a lost payment that eventually got tracked down and the incurred interest refunded; trying to get a credit limit rise got the response saying "sorry, you have to wait until you've had the account for 6 months" - even when I'd had it for more than 6 months, at which point I gave up).

I got new credit cards from Smile today. This confused me because I thought I closed all my smile accounts last year. Anyway, having the credit cards allowed me to log into online banking (because login is with cc number or bank acc number plus security) where I found that my current account had been closed but not the credit card or a moribund savings account.

They have "secure messaging" built into the web interface, but you have to specify for which account. I have now sent 3 short messages asking for the empty accounts to please be closed. And cut up the cards.

In today's post, a cheery leaflet from Nationwide about Verified by Visa:

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Do I really need to register?
Yes you do, for three reasons. Firstly, it instantly adds another level of security to your online transactions. Secondly, if you don't register your card, you won't be able to use it to shop online at the ever growing number of retailers who have signed up to VbV. And lastly, the more card holders that register, the more retailers will register, making Internet shopping safer for everyone.

Even if you don't currently shop online, by registering your card for VbV you are increasing your protection against online fraud.

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IMPORTANT - You will be given three opportunities to register when shopping online at VbV retailers. If, on the fourth request you do not register, you will not be able to use your credit card with any online VbV retailer until you have completed registration.

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The "additional level of security" is a password. In order to set it, you only need to have access to my card and know my date of birth. You get the chance to set it any time you are shopping. You can't set a separate password for the additional cardholder, but that's "ok" because I'm responsible anyway for all transactions that Tony makes on the card I gave him. So if someone clones my card and knows my DoB, they can register for VbV at the first site they go shopping at with my card.

This looks like making it EVEN HARDER to buy anything online, while making it easier to blame the customer for fraud.

I hate that the only way I can stop a cloned card being used to register for VbV is to get there first myself.