Bog off, banks

I have received a letter from the Skipton Building Society stating: “We recently tried to contact you by e-mail. However, it appears we don’t hold a valid e-mail address for you and therefore this requires updating.”

First, you didn’t have an e-mail address for me in the first place, ergo you couldn’t have tried to contact me by e-mail. Second, there is no “therefore this requires updating” about this – unless I say so!

Post-25 May 2018, all the heady talk about the ordinary citizen’s right to privacy of personal data has proven to be tommyrot.

If not being bombarded every waking hour by Asian call centres using Canterbury and Manchester redirection numbers of convenience to circumvent call blockers, it’s banks and building societies using “terminological inexactitudes” to trick customers into volunteering personal information above that required to hold an account.

Financial institutions, as ever, remain a law unto themselves – and the only bank left where the customers come first is the Food Bank.

MARK BOYLE Linn Park Gardens, Johnstone, Renfrewshire