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We never wanted to be rejected by a taxi driver again. Life has enough indignity, disappointment, and misery for us to endure flagging down a taxi, telling the driver where we’re going, and watching him drive away without a word. Screw that.

Yes, we would miss the bizarre stories and the interesting cabbies, but we’ve written enough mad taxi stories in the last two decades to fill two books. So we got the Uber app. This required abandoning our beloved ancient BlackBerry and getting an iPhone so we could navigate the app. Then we got a debit card (we don’t like credit cards, we’ve been burned on those) to use specifically for Uber.

It’s been great. Most times an Uber trip is cheaper than a taxi ride. We don’t even mind the surge rates. If we’re not in a hurry, we wait till the surge passes. During the holiday chaos, we were happy to pay the surge rates and spare ourselves from bribing drivers. (Incident that convinced us to get Uber: Saffy (in photo) had dental surgery scheduled, and after a half-hour of flagging taxis we bribed a cabbie Php300 to take us to Makati Dog and Cat Hospital, a trip that usually costs Php75.)

Yesterday we were at the Legazpi Sunday market and requested a trip on Uber. The app said our previous payment had been declined. What! We had just deposited cash into our BDO debit card account. Had we been hacked? There’ve been so many cases of hacking this year (our friend’s sister’s BPI account was emptied in Cavite, and she was never in Cavite), and there will be more as cybercrime rises. Banks have responded by putting grills over the ATM keyboards so you can’t even see the numbers you’re punching—that’s not enough.

We went to a BDO ATM to check our account. It was offline. Over the next six hours we tried the six BDO ATMs we spotted, and they were all offline. We tried to check using another bank’s ATM, but it couldn’t connect to BDO. We tried the BDO 24-hour hotline and all the operators were busy.

We considered that the fault was Uber’s so we emailed their customer care and got a reply within the hour. After a few exchanges we ascertained that the problem was on the card-issuing bank’s end.

After midnight we got through to BDO. The operator said the BDO network had been down since Sunday morning for emergency maintenance. The network was up again, but our account could not be accessed until midday Monday.

This is not the first time we’ve had a problem with BDO. A couple of years ago we put our card in an ATM in Glorietta 5 and found that the card had been deactivated. The hotline operator said it was because the card had been used in a machine prone to fraud, and we would have to go to our branch and get the card replaced.

So we went into a rant about BDO keeping our money from us. We were being unfair: All banks pull this shit. We remembered that years earlier, in Bali, our BPI ATM card had been deactivated without warning…apparently because we were using it in an “unusual” place. Excuuuse us for not informing them of our travel plans. When we got back to Manila they activated it without so much as an apology.

Yesterday’s incident is not the fault of our BDO branch. The staff at our branch is efficient and friendly. This isn’t even the fault of BDO’s IT people. It’s the fault of Banco de Oro Customer Service, which failed to inform its clients of the system shutdown. What if the clients needed the money for an emergency? What if they were abroad and couldn’t go to their branch? Sure, the system shutdown was for “emergency maintenance” and no one can predict the exact time an emergency strikes, but you couldn’t inform us that our money was inaccessible and assure us that it was a temporary situation? Yes, it happened on a Sunday, but it lasted 12 hours and more importantly, IT’S YOUR JOB. You’ve heard that we’re in the Information Age, emphasis on information, no? Have you heard of text and email, or what was the point of making us fill out those forms?

Make sure this does not happen again. You can’t argue system error, this is human error well within your ability to fix. This is CORPORATE GOOD MANNERS. We don’t expect corporations to act humane, just observe the goddamn etiquette. When something goes wrong, especially something that will inconvenience clients on a weekend when the banks are closed, LET US KNOW. You find ways, huh, well FIND A WAY.

This morning we opened Uber and charged the past due fare to our debit card. This time the payment went through without a hitch because the BDO system was alive again.

Reader, always have the name and mobile number of your bank branch manager so you have someone to call when shit like this happens.

This Monday Morning Vent became a Monday Evening Vent because we could not access our blog because Globe and Smart both suck.

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Telcos, banks, government institutions being a pain in the ass? Email your Monday Morning Vent to saffron.safin@gmail.com.