I have almost never ever used a bank account for any kind of transactions .. I don't know how to use an ATM card for withdrawing money from a bank. Anyway, so when I moved to Zurich, since I wanted some place to keep my scholarship money .. I was told that having a bank account was, in some sense, obligatory.
So, not realising how difficult this would turn out to be, I entered a bank called Credit Suisse for opening an account. Anyway the start was not too difficult. A person, let me call him Mr X, opened a savings bank account for me. It took just about 15 minutes and it looked quite simple.
No, the story does not end here!!
I began receiving loads of papers from the bank. These Swiss banks take a lot of pain for security .. I haven't seen the security of banks at other places to compare but I still think this is a bit too much. Anyway I was not using the bank account much (not-much is often used as a code word for saying not-at-all :D) except that my scholarship had started going there. One fine day, I was told by someone that the card that I had received was not a credit card. Now don't laugh .. I don't know how a credit card looks like. On this I decided to go to the bank again to ask for a credit card .. God only knows how I would be using the credit card ... but I has seen people use it and it always looks kind of cool .. so I also wanted to try it :)
Anyway, so I returned to the same branch of Credit Suisse with my query about the credit card hoping to find that same Mr X there. However Mr X was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a good looking female, lets call her Miss Y, there. But the good part virtually ends here. She began the conversation with the usual greeting in German, "Gruetzi". By now I had learned to pronounce this properly so I also uttered it without realizing where I am heading for. Anyway, she began talking in German and it took her some time to figure out that I do not understand German. Unfortunately, she was not very comfortable in English. More unfortunately, she knew some English!! I realised how dangerous "little knowledge" could be just then.
As we were having a hard time understanding each other, I explained her the reason for my having come there. With some words and some signs thrown in the conversation, we finally managed to arrive at a conclusion. I got a private bank account for which I was required to pay 6 Swiss Francs per month, and what do I get in return, ... the [i]much needed[/i](God only knows for what) credit card. Anyway, as I had signed the papers and was about to leave, I asked again just to confirm whether I will now get a credit card ... and then she says we give credit card only to people who have income beyond a certain value. What this account gave me was a Maestro Card by which I could pay at shops etc. However, by now, I had come too far to be able to say that I do not want this account now. The lady was already quite pissed off because of the effort she had to put to explain everything to me. So I exited hoping to come back again and close this account.
ASIDE: the above story has not ended yet ... this is another incident that took place when i was coming out of the bank that is kind of .. interesting. As I was getting out of the bank, I saw a person withdrawing money from the ATM. I was a little curious about how this machine works and so I tried to see what he was doing. I knew this was something weird that I was doing... anyway the guy turned around and I immediately turned back thinking he might think I am a fool. But I soon realised he might be thinking I am actually spying on his secret code (or whatever you need for that ATM thingy to work) and might have some evil intentions. After that we both walked in opposite directions, occasionally looking back at each other, for different reasons obviously ... it was really really funny :D
Anyway, coming back to the original story, I returned to the bank a few days later hoping to find Mr X or someone else (anyone but Miss Y) and get the private bank account closed. I had got to know from others by now that we can get a student account using which we can get maestro card for free. And also learned from someone else that there is another bank that offers a credit card also for free with a student account. So I was kind of undecided about what I want to do. Anyway I entered the bank .. sheepishly looking to see if Mr X was there. But unfortunately only Miss Y was there. I was about to turn back .. but she saw me. And she called. I had no option but to talk to her only. I told her I want to close the bank account. She obviously remembered me. She asked why do you want to close now? I said I have to pay 6 CHF per month for this bank account while some of my friends have a student account so they don't have to pay anything. I don't know how but she thought now I am asking for a student account. She said we can't open a student account for you now. You can't have so many accounts. I said .. I want to close .. and laid all the cards on the table .. she asked, so do you want to close the private account..and i said no I want to close ALL the accounts (as if I had some 100 accounts there) ... and she was like really really angry. But what could I do ... I wasn't at all aware of what I was doing. She completed all the formalities and asked me to sign the receipt which said that I get 3800.70 CHF .. which meant I had got 70 cents interest... awesome, right!!!! And then she paid me 3800.20 CHF ... but by no means was I going to ask her for the 50 rappen deficit. I would let her keep that as a memory of having met me.
I went out .... trying to show that i had been insulted by something :P .. but I knew for a fact i had made a fool of myself.
