After I moved to the UK in 2003 I immediately went to my local branch of Bank of Scotland to set up a current account: a basic but vital tool in everyday living. I suppose the first sign that something was wrong came when the clerk had to phone corporate headquarters in Edinburgh to figure out how to set up my account. I was informed that because I had just arrived in the UK, had no prior credit history here, and could not – due to the Data Protection Act – bring my lifelong credit history into this country, the only account the Bank was willing to give me was the basic account they normally gave to 16 year olds as a starter account.

I was 25 at the time and had been independent and financially responsible since the age of 18. I was also a newlywed trying to get my life in my new country off to a steady start. But I didn’t feel I had leverage to negotiate, so I accepted the account.

I learned very quickly what the value of the teen cash account was: nil. It was a glorified savings account. At the time, my Scottish husband and I were trying to get a mortgage to buy a home. Nevermind mortgage. With the teen bank account I couldn’t even get a mobile phone contract, nevermind the vital steps to a family life.

Normally the bank upgrades a teenager’s cash account to a regular account after two years. Well, my two years came and went, and I visited my branch in person and asked them to upgrade me to a regular account. They declined. And not only did they “decline to inform me of their reasons”, The clerk told me I should be *grateful* to have the teenagers’ account, because they’d changed their rules. If I, as an immigrant, had applied that day, they would have given me a cash only savings account with no debit card.

So there I was, age 27, a full time professional in a managerial position, with a teenagers’ cash account. I couldn’t get a loan, a credit card, or even a phone contract with it. And because I couldn’t do anything with the account but shop at Tesco, my credit history was worse than bad: it was nonexistent. And Bank of Scotland wouldn’t budge.

In exasperation I visited my MP at his Saturday surgery and explained the situation: I had been in the country legally for two years, I was on track for citizenship (which I have since been granted), I was working, I was responsible, and I had a bank which was refusing to upgrade me from a teenagers’ courtesy account. My MP said he’d make a call.

Four days later (ha!) the paperwork arrived from BoS to set up my regular current account. All it needed was my signature and my basic, adult current account would be ready to go! Their excuse was that there had been “an error in the way my account had been set up in 2003″. I was supposed to accept that as the excuse for why I had been literally treated like a child for two years.

But I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t now. Would I have been talked down to, treated like a child, and denied a basic explanation for decisions if I had an accent from down the pub? Would I have been treated that way if I came in with a “Male Authority Figure” of the proper accent rather than going in on my own with my incorrect accent? I highly doubt it.

Eight years later and the tables have turned to the point where someone from the branch phoned me to invite me in for a coffee, biscuits, and a friendly chat about ways the Bank could help me invest my moolah in their financial products. I said no. I put my investments in another bank. Maybe they’ll phone me in two years to ask again. I’ll say no and will decline to inform them of my reasons.