Free cash for all

Surely this has to be one of the biggest lies of the recent evil Bankers years.

These machines quite plainly tell you that they issue ‘free cash’.

‘Free cash’ is ‘free cash’.

I mean, if a fella was walking down the street with a handful of loadsamoney handing it out whilst saying: “Free cash, get your free cash here!”, you’d certainly expect to be able to grab whatever he offered and, after a cute: “Thank you very much,” walk away counting it.  The ‘free cash’ would be yours to have, to hold, to covet, and to spend however you wished, right?

Likewise, when it’s not a fella but a machine offering you ‘free cash’, you’d expect it to be giving it to you under identical terms.

To my absolute horror, I have discovered that the sneaky bastards behind these ‘free cash’ machines don’t actually give you any ‘free cash’ at all.

Here’s what happened to me:  Seeing the ‘free cash’ notice, I immediately went to the machine for the ‘free cash’, and followed the instructions.  To access the ‘free cash’ I had to first insert my bank card.  Not a problem.

To my slight surprise there didn’t appear to be a menu option to directly transfer the ‘free cash’ into my bank account.  The machine only gave out its ‘free cash’ as, well, cash.  Not to worry, I can happily spend ‘free cash’, not a problem.

For some reason it limited the amount of ‘free cash’ it would give me to £500.

Well, I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth of course, so I trousered the £500 and walked away pondering what purchases I was going to make.

A few days later I was online, using the brilliant new Samsung tablet I’d bought with the ‘free cash’, and I just happened to check my bank balance.

Those bastards.

Do you know what?  They’d taken £500 out of my account.

Utter bastards.

Despite the information displayed around the machine clearly stating that the cash was free, it now quite clearly wasn’t.

They’d actually debited the entire £500 from my account, and, I might add, without my permission.

I wanted the ‘free cash’, not my own money, thank you very much!

I’ve contacted the Trading Standards people.  Surely this is the ultimate in Banking hypocrisy and another typical example of rip-off Britain?  I am so seething with seeth that I’m going to write to the Daily Mail!