17.04. Digital madness (2)

The SMS system doesn't work everywhere in Germany either

She says that the procedure with SMS to foreign countries is implemented in the system but that it often does not work, and if it does, then often with such big delays that online purchase processes are cancelled due to timeout. This, she says, is very unpleasant for the customers.

I have a better idea: Since my two German SIM cards don't work here, I have my brother's German mobile phone number registered, then he gets the SMS with the TAN and can forward the code to me.

That's how we do it - but of course only after a few hours, when morning breaks in Germany and my brother is awake. But it is not only one TAN. After almost every click I make on my laptop, his mobile beeps, for every log-in and every OK I have to enter a new TAN. That's a way to spend your day. But at least the address is corrected back to my home which has been my mailing address for LBB for the past ten years.

The phone beeps after nearly every click on the laptop

But the story does not end here. When editing the residential address, a text in red suddenly lights up: "You would like to move your main residence abroad/international/to Germany? In this case, we are initially only allowed to save the address you have requested as a mailing address, as we are obliged to check your tax liability. The corresponding documents will be sent to you within the next few days as soon as you have entered the data."

LBB is welcome to do so, but I will not return the forms - just like last November, when the bank confirmed in writing that I lived abroad and that "a foreign address has been registered" for my account. I don’t fill out the forms, because I don't care whether I pay (no) withholding tax on my non-existent credit card account balance to the German or to the New Zealand tax authority.

It is therefore even more puzzling how and why the LBB system moved my residence back from New Zealand to an ancient address in Germany between November and February. It is quite obvious that the machine has replaced man and gone out of control.

SMS required for access code but the messages never arrive

This is easier said than done, because after entering the access data for registration - the first of seven steps - I would need to receive an SMS with a TAN (transaction number), but the mobile phone remains silent. I call again. The mobile number is wrong, he finds out, it has one digit too many. But – a miracle: The man can change the mobile phone number, obviously the only action a human can still do in the new system.

I start over again, but again no SMS arrives. It is a vicious circle: without SMS no registration, without registration no change of address, without change of address no mail to New Zealand. The employee on my next call wonders about the inexplicable error, "because the data should actually have been delivered with the migration", but she can only offer me one solution: I would need to send the address change by snail mail to Berlin.

It feels as if I had changed the address despite not having had access to my account and the system! The bank screws up and the customer has to fix it. This is customer service of a different kind, which costs the customer time, energy, nerves and even postage. "Back to the Future" Berlin style.

IT department overwhelmed by the task of migrating the system

But this is only half the truth. The system is going completely crazy because the IT specialists messed it up during the "migration". I have written proof of this, and much more has gone wrong than the ADAC admits. The extent of the disruption is so immense that the validity period of the access data sent out has been extended from 30 to 120 days.

Since February I have been complaining that I could not check my Visa card statements online because the announced 1-cent transfer with user name and access code for re-registration of the card never arrived on my everyday account at Sparkasse (huge chain of banks in Germany, “Savings Bank”).

Now I know why. The day before yesterday my brother sent me the photo of an envelope from LBB on WhatsApp, with my old address in Germany on it. It contained the data for the re-registration of my Visa card. This had been sent instead of the announced 1-cent transfer.

System changed mailing address back to address last used ten years ago

The letter is from February. My brother has only just received it because two years after the sale of our parents' house, he was invited by the new owner to marvel at the results of the renovation. For two years our family has not had any connection to the house, and TEN YEARS AGO I used the address for the last time for mail from LBB.

For TEN YEARS, LBB has been sending all letters to New Zealand, whether bank statements, new credit cards or the registration details for online banking. And now a stranger has received my secret access data for my credit card account.

Since it's midnight in Germany and I can get through on the LBB hotline, I can ask how this could happen. As expected, nobody knows. I ask the employee to change the address immediately, so no more mail ends up at the wrong address. This is not possible, he says, he can no longer intervene in the system as before. Instead, he says, I would need to re-register my card and then correct the address myself in the settings.

It is an ideal time for the customers on the other side of the world, who are wide awake thanks to a ten-hour head start, to speak to one of the employees who have been unreachable for about two months, and not be kicked off the line after the automated announcement that customer service is completely overwhelmed by calls.

For two months I have been unable to check my credit card account or make online payments because I was unable to re-register my ADAC Visa card, a request made by the bank to all their customers in February. (ADAC is the German automobile association.)

This re-registration was necessary because the system "migrated", as the ADAC - not the unreachable LBB - told me, and the IT department – according to an LBB employee - was hopelessly overwhelmed with the task. The bank, the ADAC assured me, was working around the clock to "eliminate the remaining faults". The reason for the chaos was "the high number of people using the new credit card banking system". This "temporarily overloaded the systems and thus led to a large number of calls to customer service".