It's now fifteen days since I received a call from my bank to check that my holiday in Romania was going well.

It came as little surprise to the man on the 'phone - an operative from NatWest's Group Security and Fraud department - that in fact I'd never been to Romania, and unlike those making large demands on my bank account in recent days, I'd not been busy buying spare parts for a Daewoo Nubira...

Identity fraud is a terrible thing for banks, and not because it costs them a packet in refunding poor sods like me. Indeed, a Police friend of mine assures me that when likely perpetrators do get caught (often at great expense to the Police), most banks are reluctant to press charges. Instead, they're content to write-off a growing chunk of money each quarter to feed the Daewoo men's extravagance, and hang the unpredictability of court cases - along with justice, of course.

No - it's a terrible thing because it exposes every crack in a bank's ability to handle its customers, and for that matter, their money. Of course, NatWest were first to spot the violation of my account, so full (erm) credit to them for putting a block on my card within hours of the obviously iffy transaction.

My qualm is not with that side of things. Rather, it's their inability to deal with the basics of customer service which riles me, an ineptitude which means that fifteen days, four phone calls and five visits to the bank later, I'm still unable to use my account without producing my defunct card and driver's licence across a counter.

In case you're thinking of opening an account with NatWest, here's the timeline I penned on the back of an envelope whilst enduring the familiar wait in my local branch today (I now know them so well I was greeted by name in the queue and shaken by hand by one member of staff):

12/07/07- Call from NatWest to report suspicious activity. Replacement card and fraud declaration to be sent, and activity logged as confirmed fraud;

13/07/07- Visit to main local branch to withdraw money using defunct card and driver's licence as ID;

16/07/07 - Visit to small local branch to check on progress of new card and documents. Told that the new card was inexplicably logged as "destroyed". Second replacement card was ordered;

19/07/07 - Visit to main local branch to withdraw money using defunct card and driver's licence as ID. No news of the card;

22/07/07 - Call made to Group Security & Fraud to enquire about lack of documents. Told that no documents (or card) had been sent because there was "no address details on my account". Erm, not quite sure why, and in any case, nice of them to let me know. I'd need to fill in a fraud declaration at my local branch;

22/07/07 - Visit to main local branch to insert rocket up anybody who would listen. Helpful lady helped me to log my address, and looked into previous card requests. Confirmed that one card had been destroyed, and a second had been "ordered though not checked off". She'd do the necessary. Meantime, I was given a fraud declaration, but told I could have done it via the telephone. Oh, and I'd need to report it to the Police;

25/07/07 - Call from Tilehurst branch (not my local) to report that my withdrawal on 12/07/07 had not been taken from my account, but from somebody else's in error! I told this story on the radio, and later received a text message from my parents (who'd heard), declaring the unfortunate debtor to be my Dad - he'd been chasing the error at his end;

27/07/07 - Call from main local branch to report that my new card had finally been delivered. On collection, I was told I'd need to wait a further 5 working days for my new PIN to arrive (it couldn't be sent to my home address, since there still wasn't one registered to my account).

So, you see my frustration. At almost every stage of this so far futile process, somebody has ill-advised me, processed something incorrectly, or not mentioned a complication which, days later, I'll have to discover for myself. My initial anger at losing money to fraudsters is now secondary to the frustration of losing my independence after 1630 on weekdays (1530 on Saturdays, crippled all day on Sundays), and the countless hours it's taken me to get nowhere with NatWest.

Give it five working days, I may just hand all banking matters to the Romanians. At least they know what they're doing with my money.