I left my credit card in Borders last night, probably failing to pull it out of the PIN reader after packing shopping. I realised this late last night, rang Borders first thing this morning, and after they reported not finding it in lost property, dutifully rang up the bank and cancelled it, with such gems as "Can you give me the card number?" "No, because I've lost it and I'm not at home with my statements." (I then logged into internet banking to get the number,)

Tony has a second card on the account, which we use for joint-spending, which has a different number. I asked if his card would still be usable and was told yes. He rang me about an hour later to say it had been refused.

I tried to log into internet banking again to get *his* card number, and was locked out. After much sitting on hold I was put back to the first person I spoke to today, who had apparently been trying to ring me to tell me that actually they had to cancel the secondary card too "for security". I'm not yet clear on why this has also locked me out of internet banking, but currently I'm on hold while she finds someone I can formally complain to. Cancelling the differently-numbered secondary card which hasn't been lost is a stupid response to me (stupidly) losing my card. It's not enhancing my security, but is rather a bloody inconvenience 2 days before Christmas.

Luckily we both have other cards for personal (non-joint) spending so we're not completely stuffed but I am very cross.

Intelligent Finance have only taken 7 of the quoted 7-10 working days to close down the old mortgage. I nearly fainted with the shock. Of course, the money isn't back in the current account yet, I expect they've sent it by BACS. When I can bear to ring them up I will confirm this.

Nationwide finally notified me yesterday of the direct debit schedule for the new mortgage. Unfortunately they had set it up on the wrong account, but a short and easy phone call at lunchtime seems to have sorted that out. (I will probably be paranoid and make sure there is enough money in the 'wrong' account for the first payment anyway.)

My savings account got taken over by ING thanks to government intervention. I think on the whole I'm pleased.

Intelligent Finance took a payment on the old, now redeemed, mortgage today. Luckily I am paranoid and was expecting them to do so, so the money was available. When I got hold of them, this is apparently because it takes "7-10 working days" for the mortgage team to close down a redeemed mortgage, do the final calculations and return any surplus money. So we will probably get our money back in the next week or so.

They also don't have any substitute for knowing a 4-digit PIN which we set manually 18 months ago and which I haven't written down or remembered because I haven't used it much since then because the internet banking is sufficient. After extracting enormous amounts of personal data they condescend to post me a replacement PIN, and lock me out of internet banking in the mean time. Good thing I already moved out the savings money.

No really, I wonder why I'm leaving them. Their handling of anything "not on the script" is dreadful, and "7-10 working days" has never yet been less than 10 working days in my experience.

Nationwide haven't yet taken the first payment for the new mortgage, which would normally be due today, because they are still setting up the direct debit and have to write to me to give me 10 days' notice. Hopefully IF will give us back the money before that has to be paid, though I have a reserve in case they don't.

I will be so glad when we are finally free of IF and the money-wrangling can settle down again.

Looks like the conveyancers sent the money via BACS not CHAPS, and I failed to notice this bit in the previously-received paperwork from them :( Annoying, because there doesn't seem to have been any option to upgrade to CHAPS (probably why I failed to notice - I dealt with everything that required a response from us), and £30 is somewhat less than 3 days' interest on the old mortgage.

Anyway, it's arrived now and for a brief period we are in credit on the old mortgage, at least until this month's interest is applied.

Nationwide's internet banking displays the interest so far on the new mortgage, which updates day by day in a nice visible slightly scary way of showing just how much borrowing money is costing us.

We are remortgaging, from bank A to building society B. Completion was set for yesterday. On Wednesday afternoon I logged into internet banking for B to see 1 new mortgage (woohoo). I logged into internet banking for A to see 1 old mortgage - but that's ok, completion is Thursday, so maybe it's normal to overlap.

6am Thursday: still 2 mortgages.
6pm Thursday: still 2 mortgages.
0:30am Friday: still 2 mortgages.
6:30am Friday: still 2 mortgages.

I do rather hope that some time today bank A's internet banking will finally catch up on the legal change that happened yesterday.

The hotel's wireless service appeared to come in flavours expensive and very expensive. After some discussion, I agreed with Tony to get the 5-day BT Openzone pass. Shortly afterwards, the hotel check-in opened, and Tony went off to sort us out while I wrangled toddler. Shortly after that I had a call from HSBC credit card fraud services because Tony's card on our 'joint' cc account was making out-of-pattern transactions.

Yes, it's normally used a couple of times a week to buy food at the Co-op, but I was happy to confirm we really were at the Hilton buying BT Openzone.

They got it right in several ways: yes, we were spending wildly out of pattern (the fact they distinguish between the two cards on the account is good); yes, they gave me enough information to be fairly confident it really was HSBC; no, they didn't ask me for information that would easily enable them to impersonate me to someone else.

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.

...

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.