West of the Town

Saturday 23 July 2011

These documents are not important

Now Credit Agricole bank in France consists (I think) of 4 regional banks. You can manage your account at your branch, but not easily from another one. In fact the branch here at Vitry cannot do anything for me when my local branch is in Chef Boutonne.
"You see, it's a different bank" I was told.
Quite so! In any case was persuaded to transfer my account to Vitry.
So it was this Saturday we called in by appointment to move the account. "Actually it is easier to open a new one", she said, "it is actually a different bank". Yes I know. But at least they can move all the standing orders and things like that automatically (actually I fear she will do this manually at our next rendez-vous on Saturday).
At the end of the 100 minute meeting, she put all the new documents in a folder for us. "These documents", she explained, "are not important. So I will put them at the back". The documents in question were the signed pieces of paper that acknowledged that we had given our phone numbers freely to the bank. There were several documents like that, some more important than others.
We were told that the French love paper. There is certainly plenty of it. They also love documents like passports and birth certificates. All dutifully photocopied and then scanned into the computer. Everyone found it complicated, from our hostess, to the trainee, and us, of course.
So now we have 2 bank accounts. In time we should be able to get it back to just 1. I hope so!

And so onto the station to find out about going to Paris for the day. It was closed. Strange because lunchtime was over, and any way, the station is one of the places that is open right through. The door presented the answer. "fermeture exceptionnelle" it announced. So we hunted for information and soon gave up. We booked on the web in the evening. Not sure how to get the tickets but I have the receipt printed and we shall see!