We were staying in Bowness for a long weekend and did a couple of trips on the ferry to go on walks on the other side of the water. That ticket machine must be the least intuitive machine in the world. Both days we went we were stuck behind long queues as someone at the front was pressing random buttons to get a ticket.

I was behind someone who was taking over 5 minutes to get a ticket, she was pressing the +/- sign as she wanted to buy a ticket for more than one passenger but the machine coin slot closed. Turns out that pressing +/- activates the contactless payment option – clever eh.

Now the instructions do say that but in general people just expect to be able to stick their money in and a ticket comes out.

It has other foibles but can’t be bothered listing them 🙂

Oh and there are 3 machines at 1 side but only 1 at the other – sensible stuff!

The company that made such a simple process incredibly complicated really should be applauded 🙂

Yes, every time I have been recently the bloke who used to sell the tickets is now paid to tell people how to buy the tickets.

There is also then someone on the ferry to check the purchased ticket.

hmmmm

Yeh on the way over the guy came over to show people how to work the machine 🙂

I could hazard a guess the same company were behind the abomination that is the new HSBC internet banking interface.

Want to pay someone? What instruction would you expect to see? ‘Pay someone’? ‘Make a payment’? ‘Pay a bill’? No. ‘Move Money’. MOVE F%$£&*G MONEY!!!!!!!! I am not moving money I am paying someone. If I pressed a button saying ‘Move Money’ I would expect to be moving money from one of my accounts and into another.

I emailed them to complain about this but they didn’t even respond. Probably because the ‘Send’ button on their email client says something equally stupid like ‘Make contact’. Or ‘Sausage’.

“Move Money” – the guy who wrote that interface had recently been transferred from the bank’s Offshore Financing Dept 😉

😆

They’d only just fitted the new machines when we were there and nobody could work them, especially not the wee old dude that was manning the slipway.

You can pretty much drive around the top of the lake in the same time, mind. But boats are exciting!

You can pretty much drive around the top of the lake in the same time, mind

Could do but we were on foot, walked to Ambleside on Saturday and got the bus back (price of which could be another rant 🙂 )

the new HSBC internet banking interface.

Or the HSBC branch layout. I went at lunch – it is the oddest, weirdest and downright confusing layout of any bank I know. Looks before any function…

Could do but we were on foot,

Swim!

When we went over earlier this year the guy came down the row of cars getting the money off you and went and got the tickets for everyone. He even toojk my debit card for contactless. That suited us as it was raining, as it ofetn does in the lakes. 😆

the abomination that is the new HSBC internet banking interface

Consider yourself fortunate – I’m with smile. For now at least…

Consider yourself fortunate – I’m with smile. For now at least…

Get out. Best thing we did a year ago, and £300 M&S vouchers richer. Next week we are off to Clydesdale for £250 each…

The Windermere ferry ticketing fiasco is frustrating to say the least. An old system which certainly appeared to work well, a new system which simply doesn’t and I can’t see how it saves money.

A personal low point was waiting in the queue for a ticket as the ferry set off. It’s a cold wait for it to come back in soaking biking kit.

Wezzy gezzy

HSBC branch layout

HSBC branch? Ah, I remember those… before they all became charity shops or winebars.

Anyways, to pay a cheque into a Halifax. Approach machine, insert card and PIN. Insert cheque. Machine says “do ya wanna deposit x quid?” Yep. Take receipt. Walk away.

To pay a cheque into HSBC. Fill in paper form, join queue at 4 window branch with one member of staff, wait, wait more, approach counter, hand over card, paper and cheque, be quizzed on where money came from, wait, get receipt, walk out having lost the Will to live.

And the **** website! Jeez. You log into an account, click the icon saying Move Money (natch) and it asks you which account you want to move money from. Er, the one I’m logged into? Seriously annoying.

Anyway, the mortgage rate was cheap and so there we are… 🙁

Next week we are off to Clydesdale for £250 each…

Are they still doing that?

Next week we are off to Clydesdale for £250 each…

Strangely, it was Clydesdale I was thinking of moving to.

Are they still doing that?

No 🙁

I used to like getting the ferry on my Lake District rides. Cycle on, pay the £1 and you’d then be let off first as well.

Now you cycle up, queue at the useless ticket machine, the ferry takes cyclists on last, it then waits a further 5 mins for a couple of others desperately trying to get the machine to work, sets off and then at the other side makes the cyclists wait in the exhaust fumes while 18 cars fire up their engines and depart. Also on a bike you can’t actually get into the pedestrian shelter, you’re just left out in the open.

It’s shit now.