Several years ago when I was a student at a university overseas, I returned home for a few months to complete an internship requirement. I needed a local credit card, but instead of opening my own account, I arranged with my dad to become an additional cardholder on his account instead. This meant I could avoid the hassle of applying at a local bank, especially since I didn’t have an income at the time and that I would only need it for a short time.
The application to become an additional cardholder was quite straightforward. The hard part came when I received the card and had to activate it.
I called up the number provided and was asked a series of questions to verify my identity. I got stuck when the bank rep asked me what the last two purchases made on the account were. As I hadn’t made any purchases yet, I didn’t know the answer to the question. On saying that I didn’t know as it wasn’t my account, I was informed immediately that I failed the verification process and that my card could not be activated, and the call was ended.
So I decided to try again, this time when my dad was around so that I could ask him the answer to questions like these. This time, I knew what the two previous transactions were.
But, then I was asked how much they were.
I didn’t know the answer, so I deferred to my dad sitting in front of me. However, this practice was not acceptable to the bank representative. As I had asked someone else the answer to this question, I had failed the verification process, again, and the call was immediately ended.
To pass their test, I had to know the answer to questions about other people’s transactions myself.
So now both my dad and I were becoming frustrated. We called back again, and this time when we got to questions about previous transactions, my dad took over from me. When the bank rep objected, my dad objected back, angrily, pointing out (in less than polite words) the irony that a person who is not yet a cardholder is supposed to know what transactions were made on an account that was not theirs to be authorised to make transactions.
Apparently, yelling loudly enough did the trick. The bank representative immediately apologised, accepted my dad’s responses to questions about prior transactions, and activated my card.
The lesson here is, yell. If all else fails, just yell. It’s kind of like when an old-school TV didn’t work ¬– sometimes a good hard kick was all it needed to get going.
