I love reading Dally's total misunderstanding of anything left wing and political.

I'm still chuckling at his assertion that Marxism = Leninism the other week. That was the point that it suddenly became obvious that he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

Pssst! Shall we mention anarcho-syndicalism in his presence?

Or a subset thereof?

Always makes he laugh that there's a whole, albeit small,group of deluded people out there who like to try to intellectualise over theoretical nuances of theoretical socialism / communism and spend huge portions of the life pretending to "fight" for some imaginary cause / imminent revolution! They are just stupid. Often teachers and people with beards. None of them have ever considered what real life would be if their fantasies became reality. Some of the saddest people you could ever meet. Might adopt one as a pet.

It's bloody ridiculous isn't it! We both told them we'd be going to Philadelphia, Washington DC and New York and probably a couple of places in between. It was fine in Philly & DC, then it must have been the stops in Lancaster & Gettysburg that did it. Though despite us both making purchases on our cards, only mine got stopped. You'd also have thought the person making the decision could have looked at a map and seen Gettysburg is in between DC and New York!
It really annoyed me because we were running short of cash and I could've done with my debit card! Especially for the flight home which turned into a disaster, needless to say US Airways have joined Halifax, Reel Cinemas and York City Council on my sh|t list.

The best I ever heard on that was a freelance war correspondent who had his Amex declined at an airport while trying to flee an African country that had just exploded into civil war. He managed to blag a flight home on a British troop transport that had been flown in to evacuate our embassy. Once back in London, he contacted Amex to find out what the fook had gone wrong. It transpired that they'd put a block on his card because of "irregular activity" surrounding the purchase of a £5k diamond ring, shortly before he left the UK. The stupid bugger had failed to notify Amex that he'd got engaged and buying £5k engagement rings wasn't the sort of monthly activity that he regularly indulged in.

This also happened to us two years ago in France - over a £2 transaction! Not only did they stop the card, when we rang up to find out why they wouldn't tell us! We were very worried that someone had cleaned out our account, just what you want when you're a 1000 miles from home. When we finally sorted it because my son went around to our house we discovered the reason we were relieved the account was in credit but pretty annoyed over the reason.
I wrote to complain, but got not response. My wife had earlier written to complain about poor service in the branch and go no response.
We switched to the Halifax. Our bank at the time? The one that's currently advertising how friendly and local and cosy it is the Yorkshire - I'd been with since it was the Yorkshire Penny Bank. They finally responded after about three months when they noticed no activity in our current account! However, if the Co-op open a branch near us or take over a Lloyds branch near us I'm seriously thinking of switching again.

major hound wrote:This also happened to us two years ago in France - over a £2 transaction! Not only did they stop the card, when we rang up to find out why they wouldn't tell us! We were very worried that someone had cleaned out our account, just what you want when you're a 1000 miles from home. When we finally sorted it because my son went around to our house we discovered the reason we were relieved the account was in credit but pretty annoyed over the reason. I wrote to complain, but got not response. My wife had earlier written to complain about poor service in the branch and go no response. We switched to the Halifax. Our bank at the time? The one that's currently advertising how friendly and local and cosy it is the Yorkshire - I'd been with since it was the Yorkshire Penny Bank. They finally responded after about three months when they noticed no activity in our current account! However, if the Co-op open a branch near us or take over a Lloyds branch near us I'm seriously thinking of switching again. Check for yourself on Googlemap

major hound wrote:This also happened to us two years ago in France - over a £2 transaction! Not only did they stop the card, when we rang up to find out why they wouldn't tell us! We were very worried that someone had cleaned out our account, just what you want when you're a 1000 miles from home. When we finally sorted it because my son went around to our house we discovered the reason we were relieved the account was in credit but pretty annoyed over the reason. I wrote to complain, but got not response. My wife had earlier written to complain about poor service in the branch and go no response. We switched to the Halifax. Our bank at the time? The one that's currently advertising how friendly and local and cosy it is the Yorkshire - I'd been with since it was the Yorkshire Penny Bank. They finally responded after about three months when they noticed no activity in our current account! However, if the Co-op open a branch near us or take over a Lloyds branch near us I'm seriously thinking of switching again. Check for yourself on Googlemap

Lovely both our C&G that has our ISA and the LloydsTSB that has my current account are being sold.
Saves me a hell of a lot of hassle changing over on my own.