Beryl Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 Sending bank cards and cheque books out automatically and in plenty of time.Doing important things on line rather than using the internet just to sell you something.Customer Service.... it may be naff Americanisms (have a nice day) in the UK but I rather like the idea that the customer is king and always right;[:P]I've got lots more but will give the rest of you a chance [:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="beryl"]Sending bank cards and cheque books out automatically and in plenty of time.[/quote]Both BNP and Credit Agricole do this for us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beryl Posted January 9, 2007 Author Share Posted January 9, 2007 Mine didn't. But even as a devout Francophile you must have experienced something where you thought the French establishments could take a leaf out of ?????? book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugsy Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 I think you have been very unlucky Beryl. We bank with CA and, as Coop says, they are really good. Debit card notification comes by way of a letter and then we nip down and collect them.Perhaps you should consider a change, it's not difficult as the new bank will do all of the transaction for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 Yes, I have to admit, Beryl but for me it's driving habits - especially "banana" overtaking! This seriously gets my blood up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 The French should follow the British example in making it simple and comparatively inexpensive to start and run a small business, and employ staff. Enterprise and expansion are stifled in France, which does nothing for the unemployment figures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Anglia Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="cooperlola"]Yes, I have to admit, Beryl but for me it's driving habits - especially "banana" overtaking! This seriously gets my blood up![/quote]"Banana overtaking"?[8-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 What's wrong with overtaking bananas? They should never be allowed behind a wheel in the first place.Or is this a term for blind bends? (that I can relate to)I'm sure we had a thread about driving in November or thereabouts ... [:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="Ford Anglia"][quote user="cooperlola"]Yes, I have to admit, Beryl but for me it's driving habits - especially "banana" overtaking! This seriously gets my blood up![/quote]"Banana overtaking"?[8-)][/quote]You know, get right up the ch*ff of the person in front and then pass them following the rough outline of the average banana - (only bigger, of course), and pulling in again as close to their front bumper as possible.[:D] Not my expression. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugsy Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 That's quite amazing, we're talking about Banks, I blink, and now we're talking about Bananas............[:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="beryl"]Sending bank cards and cheque books out automatically and in plenty of time.Doing important things on line rather than using the internet just to sell you something.Customer Service.... it may be naff Americanisms (have a nice day) in the UK but I rather like the idea that the customer is king and always right;[:P]I've got lots more but will give the rest of you a chance [:D][/quote]My bank sends my card and chequebook too, if I want them to. I prefer to collect them from my local branch in the village, something not many people in the UK can do!!One of the reasons for the relative slow internet inter-activity is probably due to the fact that France used to have all this sort of things on their own network, called Minitel, way back even before the web was commonplace anywhere else. These phones were available to every telephone user and were used pretty much in the way you use the net today... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 However promptly people may receive cheque books etc, French banking is generally somewhat primitive and would not be out of place in a third world economy. I think the British banks are infinitely superior, but I know some others actually like French banking (poor things). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YCCMB Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 Back to the original question, if I'm actually allowed to change the subject away from banks?[;-)] The French could learn a thing or two from the UK in splashing out (no pun intended) just that extra couple of euros to install proper sit-down toilets in the stopping areas on autoroutes (and everywhere else, for that matter). I'm not sure I see any benefit to the hole-in-the-ground toilet[+o(] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beryl Posted January 9, 2007 Author Share Posted January 9, 2007 Packing their shopping into bags or boxes at the checkout rather than putting it into their trolley and emptying it all out, item by item, into the boot of their cars.[8-)]Not using cheques at petrol stations and waiting 10 minutes for some old arthritic dear to view her cheque, sign her check and move off at 2 kms in her sans license. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 bettyi can see a definite advantage to hole in the ground. you don't have to park your bum where others have parked (and you don't really know how clean or otherwise their bums are)!i personally like not touching with any part of my body anything in a public looalso, betty, as you have lived in singapore, you must be used to hole in the ground? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 You know you are in France when in the Supermarket with long check-out queues they start closing tills (making the queues even longer). Always seems that long queues seems to prompt to start closing them but when the queues get shorter they start to re-open them again.Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5-element Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="Deimos"]You know you are in France when in the Supermarket with long check-out queues they start closing tills (making the queues even longer). Always seems that long queues seems to prompt to start closing them but when the queues get shorter they start to re-open them again.Ian[/quote]AND when a new till opens, it is the people who are behind you in the queue who race up to the newly open till and pay first, and you still end up being the last one in any queue. It always reminds me of the bibilical "les premiers seront les derniers et les derniers seront les premiers"... I am not sure what it is in English! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YCCMB Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="sweet 17"] bettyi can see a definite advantage to hole in the ground. you don't have to park your bum where others have parked (and you don't really know how clean or otherwise their bums are)!i personally like not touching with any part of my body anything in a public looalso, betty, as you have lived in singapore, you must be used to hole in the ground?[/quote]True, why would I want to park my bum over a seat that someone else has used, when instead I can wade through what they used it for[+o(] (because the flush quite often doesn't, or if it does, it does it by a sort of tsunami-like wave of water which drenches the whole area) and then I can try one of the many ways of rolling my trousers up to the knees in order to avoid the inevitable, whilst the rest of the inevitable soaks into my shoes[+o(], all the while holding onto a handrail on the wall because unlike you I am physically incapable of "not touching anything in a public loo" of this type without falling over!!!!! Apart from the above (and your comment about Singapore, where I must have been really fortunate NOT to find holes in the ground everywhere) I totally agree with everything you said!! In any case, Singapore's so small you're never more than half an hour from home anyway, so the need to use a public loo is minimised!!(I have been racking my brains as to what we'd do - other than carefully recce all the stops en route - in order to make a road journey feasible for my 89-year-old-mother. When you're only sweet 17, it's probably OK,[;-)] but when you're sweet 89, I have a feeling that one of those loos would be physically out of the question...................) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 bettytake her her own potty which you can then empty into the loos at the aires! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Katie Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 I think they should all have half hour for lunch. That'll learn 'em[:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YCCMB Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="sweet 17"]bettytake her her own potty which you can then empty into the loos at the aires![/quote]You don't know my mother, do you? That would go down like a lead balloon. [:D] No, five lead balloons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5-element Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 What "they " should really learn from the UK, is to say SORRY....even if just once in a while... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 I've joined "them". I say it far less now than I used to! [:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hastobe Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 [quote user="You can call me Betty"]Back to the original question, if I'm actually allowed to change the subject away from banks?[;-)] The French could learn a thing or two from the UK in splashing out (no pun intended) just that extra couple of euros to install proper sit-down toilets in the stopping areas on autoroutes (and everywhere else, for that matter). I'm not sure I see any benefit to the hole-in-the-ground toilet[+o(][/quote]LOL - I sooo agree!!! And the thought did occur to me on our last visit...how the **** do disabled travellers go to the loo...Kathie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Riff-Raff Element Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 Binge drinking. Appearantly some little progress has been made ("Envoy Speciale" hasan article on it - France 2, Thursday, 20:50) but it seems that theavailability of alcopops is just too limited for any real advancement of thecopious vomiting, unrestrained fornication and random violence culture thatFrance needs to take its place amongst the community of properly devolopednations. A little bird tells me that the naughty government has somehowstiffled free enterprise & consummer choice in this respect by some wheeze involving doubletaxation of the revolting things or have kept them at bay using the same lawthat has kept absinthe off the shelves since dear old VvG tried to hack his ownear off after a couple of glasses of the green stuff. I don't know for sure,but the range on sale at our Leclerc is certainly very limited.CarpetingOK - I don't actually miss them as such, but why are fitted carpets such a rarity?Is there an opening for Carpet World here? There is some strange stuff withfoam backing that the Bricos sell, but it cannot be reccomended. Twenty yardswalking on that and you can build up a 14 million volt potential. Our bank hasit (oh dear, back to banks again - I'm one of those ostrich types who can'treally see much difference. Oh and Will - a third world bank is one where theyhold customers hostage until they agree to cover the staff wage bill for theweek, not one where they take five minutes to handle a deposit. I'd settle forsecond world, though.) and I almost catapulted the manager through the windowlast time I wandered in to check the balance on the kid's accounts to seewhether they could afford to play poker with me again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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