My extraordinary experiences in state owned banks.

As part of my motorcycle courier service, I go to several banks to make payments on behalf of my main customer. The bank I go to most often is Banco Provincia which is publicly owned and consequently the employees are paid by the state which is an important consideration in the big picture.

Most of the payments are cheques but sometimes they are cash. Cash payments I usually do at Provincia Net (aka Bapro and not related to the aforementioned bank) because it's usually quicker, but they don't take cheques at Provincia Net. Stay with me on this...

Sometimes my customer asks me to take sheathes of papers with multiple cheques or cash and this is what happened to me yesterday and today.

I should add that the cashiers at Banco Provincia are the least cooperative of any bank employees (or any employees for that matter) that I have ever come across.

Yesterday I had ten cheque payments to make and around forty separate cash payments, so I was ready to gird my loins for the forthcoming ordeal.

When you arrive, you tap in your DNI number at the nearest terminal, tap 'cashier' and the machine spits out a ticket with your number on it. In this case ETxxx. Other numbers for different services begin with different letters, you still join the same queue but the order in which you are called shows no logic whatsoever as far as the alphanumeric ticket system is concerned. It's very mysterious.

When I first started doing these bank runs with multiple cheques/wads of cash, I was given short thrift by all the cashiers and was told in no uncertain terms that since I wasn't a customer of the bank, the maximum number of payments I could make in one go was seven. Needless to say that I argued the point, but it was a complete waste of time due to the passive-aggressive nature of each cashier.

Armed with this knowledge, I made seven cheque payments to one grumpy cashier then quickly grabbed another number in order to return.

However, since this was a Monday following a long weekend, the queue had grown considerably and my wait would be hours with about fifty people in front of me, so I then went to Bapro and queued up, only to find that their barcode scanning payment system was down and has been for the last two weeks. This meant that I had no alternative but to make all those payments back at Banco Provincia, which was not a pleasant thought.

I then killed a bit of time, went back to the bank, waited another half an hour, presented myself to the cashier who proceeded to lecture me again on wanting to make so many payments as if it wasn't his job to do so. He was so rude that I nearly lost it, but I did manage to get him to grudgingly do seven for me.

When I left Mr Grumpy I found nearly a hundred people were now before me, all holding tickets and looking as pissed off as I felt.

I then went to the San Isidro branch where I knew the cashiers to be much friendlier, but on arrival the bank was packed and I would have to wait behind another one hundred people which would take hours.

This exercise had already taken up most of the day and of course banks close at three, so I headed off to another Bapro in Villa Martelli only to find that the system failure was widespread, so I went home for a lie down in a darkened room.

Today I felt revitalised, so I planned ahead knowing that I would need to acquire at least five numbered tickets because I had over thirty cash payments to make and clearly couldn't use Bapro and bearing in mind the Mr Grumpys loathe doing my kind of payments.

Anyway, I arrived very early at the bank ready for battle, grabbed a ticket, miraculously only waited a few minutes and managed to get a surly cashier to process my first seven payments.

I then ran to the terminal, grabbed another ticket but a few minutes later (when I had observed at least a dozen people doing the same) used a different DNI number to grab another ticket, ensuring that the numbers were not too close together, because the new number could have been called when I was at a cashier window and I would miss it.

This system worked brilliantly and I carried it out a further three times, even managing to get an extra payment past the last Mr Grumpy which made my day because I'd found a way to fuck the system. (you can't get multiple tickets with the same DNI number because it asks you to cancel the previous one).

In fact, I ended up with a spare ticket which read ET129 and on my way out I spotted a girl looking forlorn, her ticket showed ET175, so I handed it over to to her and she thanked me profusely. Maybe I could have sold the ticket?

The point of all this is that public employees have no right to be so damned rude and I have voiced this to the cashiers in the past, but it's water off a duck's back. They simply ignore the comment (and you) and wave someone in behind you. But I won't take obstruction under any circumstances which usually results in these cashiers reluctantly processing the payments I've given them because in the end, they are obliged to.

Queueing at Carrefour will now be a walk in the park!

Quote from GlasgowJohn

Banco Nacion works OK for me . Well, it did when Melconian was the CHAIRMAN.

I told the security guard at my local branch that Carlos was a mate and he pulled out a special ticket which got me to the front of the queue - he then went and told the employee that I was a mate of the main man. Tremendous service. Saved me about 50 minutes in the queue . But then Carlos resigned and a new main man was installed. Back to normal - but I did tell the security bloke that I mentioned to Carlos the excellent service I got in the branch. I still got a ticket to jump the queue , so I cant complain.

Just for info, I have met Carlos several times and I will be having a coffee with him next week.

I also do payments at Banco Nacion and the experience is much better. The doorman even gave me a better ticket on one occasion and the cashiers are usually women, who are much more helpful than the men in my opinion.

Quote from Rice

Reading this, I’m beginning to understand why people in BsAs are so patient and uncomplaining in queues at Coto and Carrefour. These may hold you up for 10-15 minutes, but not for hours.

Splinter , it seems to me your client must be big enough to pull some weight with the banks. Could you get them to talk to the top person and say “Our courier will be bringing in multiple deposits every week. We need for you to have your cashiers handle them in one fell swoop?”

That is an outrageous situation! I hope that at least they pay by the hour, not by the job, so you don’t starve.

I charge for each trip and also for the waiting time which my client accepts unreservedly. They also pay bang on time which is crucial nowadays.

Whilst your suggestion is helpful, in the real world of that particular bank, that's not going to happen because they don't have an account there.

Having said all this, we bank with Banco Ciudad which is also state owned, but with a much better attitude. Our small local branch is very friendly and I can just turn up and ask to see someone anytime I like.

What I found intimidating about Banco Provincia was the constant human surveillance. Four armed police moving around and several security men eyeing everyone all the time. Try to use your phone and they are on you like a rash.

Sit over there, move away from here, walk this way etc etc. There is definitely a cattle mentality when uniformed personnel are involved. Perhaps they should employ sheepdogs instead.

I remember one occasion during the pandemic when I joined a Western Union queue somewhere in Olivos and the security guard ordered me to move two feet in a certain direction at which I blew my top and told him to fuck off.

He walked away confused.

If you think this was bad, my experience in Banco Nacion today was on a completely new level.

As described in my original post, that one was a mere five on a scale of ten. Today was a ten, if not eleven and to say that I manged to NOT lose my rag, is an understatement.

Tomorrow I'll describe in lurid detail how the day began, how quickly it went downhill and got worse by the hour. I may still be fuming, but the rum is certainly helping.

Stay tuned.