We're trying to help. Honest!

But sometimes it seems we're just making things more complicated for them. I had a visitor from out of town come in today to try to pay her bill (due in 2 days). She'd been in town much longer than she anticipated (maybe because of last week's storm?) and she needed to go in person to a branch of HSBC Bank. She usually pays by phone (or online, it wasn't clear). Except that she left her PIN at home. In Buffalo. And there are no branches of HSBC in NH. Or MA. But their website doesn't tell you that--half an hour wasted trying to find one that way. There is a physical branch in Buffalo--three, in fact--so I gave her the phone numbers of all 3 and suggested that she try to get a real person and [re]establish banking by phone with them. It was like the dreaded "what's my email password?" question, but worse.