or

b) get an operating system that gives you access to the fundamental content you need, along with a truckload of content you don’t, which has a serious impact on the things you do, and which someone else has to pay for, but which you cannot turn off.

“We are all aware and fed up with the theft of bags of clothing from your doorstep. These thefts are usually conducted by gangs of foreign nationals”, it says.

I hope they’re swamped by bags and bags of unwanted “foreign national” attire.

What’s my problem…?

I have a Natwest business banking account, so it looks vaguely professional when I ask people for money as part of my self-employed activities.

They don’t manage that account: I do. Almost everything that happens to the account is done online, by me. In spite of this they charge me for pretty much everything.  

Every time a client pays me via BACS, or I pay in a cheque, they charge me.  Every time I transfer money from my business account to my (Natwest) personal accounts, they charge for that too. I don’t earn interest on the balance in my business account. They of course do.

At the same time they waste that money sending me an endless stream of junkmail advertising loans, insurance and other services that I have never expressed an interest in.

So here’s why I’m annoyed. Natwest charges me for the privilege of being able to spend my own time moving money around my own accounts – money on which they’ll earn interest.

Now, to rub salt in, they spend even more money advertising services I don’t want, on TV, by filming the process they go through to irritate me with their junkmail that I don’t want but that I pay for by spending my own time managing my own money on which they earn interest.

Stupid, hateful bank.