A rave for CommBank

This blog is called Rants, Raves, and Miscellaneous Musings. I've been ranting for a while (though not often enough) and I have been miscellaneously musing. But I find that I have not been raving. Or in short I haven't been handing out kudos.

Maybe its because there are so few kudos to hand out. And no you stupid freak, I do not mean the bar/pub/babejoint in Colombo.

I decided to go AirTel. Hey, if it was good for Sanga, or was it Mahela, well.. one of them anyway.. its good for me. Not AirTel, but the freedom to switch. And lets face it, they did make a good offer. So I do a switch.

So here I am in the AirTel office. The one on Duplication Road, right opposite the British Council. I'm waiting to get a connection, postpaid of course. And they say they want a proof of residence. Fair enough, I say.

What would you like? Yours Truly asks.

They want a light bill (don't have one), a water bill (ditto), pay slip (freelance? pay slip? pay???), cellphone bill (hold on, I thought I was switching from a prepaid to postpaid) or bank statement (in this day and age of electronic banking who actually has time to read bank statements. And in this economy, who has money to have bank accounts?)

So looks like I'm fucked. And not in a good way with peanut butter and chocolate sauce. Did I just say that out loud?

Then I remember, I have a bank account, albeit slightly used with somewhere between zero to, well, zero rupees in it. And its at the Commercial Bank. Over in Kohuwala. But they have a branch right opposite the AirTel office.

So I cruise on in. Speak to a teller and ask him if I can get a statement.

Sure, the guy says. And I smile. Looks like the new phone link will be mine.

Oh, he says, and my smile sinks to my bellybutton and points south.

Apparently I have an account. Good. I have asked to not have statements sent to me. Of course I did that. I do not want my house cluttered with envelopes I don't bother reading. And since all it would say is opening balance 0.00/closing balance 0.00 I think I'm not missing much. Maybe that's just me. But this is, apparently, a Bad Thing. This means that they can't give me a bank statement.

Then the teller, he comes up with an idea. Since all I need is something showing my address, he can print out the account details screen. Print it on CommBank paper, and get it stamped.

Do it, say I. And he does.

He takes it to the manager, gets it signed, and has it to me in 15 minutes.

I take it to AirTel, and am waiting for my connection to go active. That took time. But that is another story.

So a big rave out to the guys at Commercial Bank. Sure they don't have front office tellers in short skirts like HSBC, or fancy drawings and lotteries (like almost anyone else). But really. who needs it? CommBank does the job, and give great service. Nothing more, and nothing less. Definitely the place I like keeping my non-existent money in.