This morning, I called Barclaycard and cancelled my card.
It's my one man protest about the shameful actions of Barclays in closing the Egg facility on Pride Park, leading to 659 job losses in Derby by the end of the year. They certainly know how to kick a city when it's down. Their announcement came hours after 3,000 people at Bombardier learnt that their jobs were under threat due to their failure to win a contract for new trains which went to Siemens in Germany instead.
Now, I admit my protest is going to be pretty ineffectual, but it does make me nostalgic for the student politics of the 1980s and the boycott of Barclays because of its involvement with apartheid South Africa. This isn't anything like as serious I guess. But what is hilarious is the way that Barclaycard responded to my tweet. Their rather inept (and obviously automated) attempt to engage me through twitter suggests to me that there may be good money to be made in advising corporates on how to use social media effectively, rather than just looking a little bit silly. Here's my exchange in its full glory.
In case you're wondering, the link @BarclaycardNews suggested I look at was their customer complaints procedure (no thanks "guys" – it's your problem, not mine). My link is to the BBC Derby article on the closure.