CEO e-therapeutics. Computational drug discovery and RNAi. Previous life as equity analyst & equity trading . International Master of Chess. Views my own, DYOR.
1/ On Thursday, my 82 year old mother found out that fraudsters had stolen every penny she had in the world from her
@HSBC_UK
accounts. This thread is the story of a dystopian,nightmare banking system in the UK where the concept of a highly distressed human being doesn’t exist…
11/Organisations, political parties, etc talk a good game when it comes to “support” or “mental health” or “community” but when the shit hits the fan, they’re all faceless organisations. Morally bankrupt and full of equality adverts and slogans.
12/My mum has banked with
@HSBC_UK
for probably 50 years or more. So we’ll do the whole
@financialombuds
thing and fill in a million faceless forms. But I bet that not a single person will ever turn up at her home, sit down with her and just talk to her. Shame on you
@HSBC_UK
9/The entire
@HSBC_UK
“algorithm” does not have a procedure for something as basic as a “human emergency” or a human in desperate need. My mum has us. How many 82 year olds have no one? What would they even do??
8/We were there for 4 hours. The fraud department said they would call back. They didn’t. Not one person
@HSBC_UK
@HSBC
even considered the devastating impact this event could have on an 82 year old woman. Lost her entire life savings and without me there, had nothing.
3/ She went to a branch who simply printed out her statements and told her to go and call the
@HSBC_UK
fraud department. No one for a moment thought that this could be a highly shocking and distressing situation. Of course,
@HSBC_UK
has outsourced all call centres…
4/And of course, all the conversations were fraught on bad phone lines, poor english etc. I arrived at her home and spoke to them. I could barely hear them but the main ingredient that was missing was any real sense of what had actually happened…
@HSBC_UK
@HSBC
13/And of course we will close all our
@HSBC_UK
accounts but in the knowledge that every other bank is likely just as bad and God forbid, may well be worse. I have more on banking, insurance companies, the police and the NHS in the UK….
2/
@HSBC_UK
allowed fraudsters to transfer all her savings for a period of 6/7 weeks comprised of c.150 transactions to one external account, leaving all her accounts overdrawn. They didn’t notify her once and the fraudsters only stopped when there was nothing left…
@HSBC
10/I think (think) she will get her money back. Everyone
@HSBC_UK
seems to agree that it’s an incredible glitch. Then there’s the
@actionfrauduk
who give you 28 days to reply and a crime reference number. Spot the theme?
6/I said I would take her to the branch first thing in the morning and we were the first customers. 3 people saw us, agreed that the transactions were clearly fraudulent and should have been stopped. They called the fraud department, emailed another department, the
5/At one stage, they insisted to speak to her again. They began asking her questions about me. Why she had travelled to Iran where she comes from. Had I travelled to Iran. At one stage, they told her they suspected me. They said they would call back, they didn’t.
@HSBC_UK
@HSBC
@hoovlet
@Varro_Analytics
Classic cult phenomenon. Groups of humans beings with ‘best of intentions’, convinced they’re right, control creeps in, intimidation, punishments, shame…
7/But they were paralysed from doing anything. They couldn’t create a new account and place a small sum in there to cover the weekend, normal expenses, direct debits. I paid some money into her account and of course they said the overdraft had to be paid out of it…
@HSBC_UK
1/ I played a rare blitz tournament two years ago and my opponent turn up to the game. Someone asked me if I would play a kid in a friendly. She was 6 years old and had to sit on her knees on the chair because she was so tiny…
#chess
@HSBC_UK
17/ Fraud is rampant and only going to get more sophisticated and difficult to spot with deep fakes. But in this case, a very simple “algorithm” to spot crazy patterns of transactions would have caught it all. A child could spot it. They are entirely at fault.
@HSBC_UK
15/ Update: 6 days on and
@HSBC_UK
fraud say: “..Always do our best to respond and resolve complaints within 56 days (8 weeks). Of course, we always aim to respond to complaints much sooner than this..” Incredible. She has no money or bank account…🤷🏻♂️
There're steps we could've taken without lockdowns - including ventilation, high-grade masks, free testing, support with isolation but we didn't. China-bashing is popular but doesn't change the fact that we have 1.7 million people with long COVID, an unsafe NHS & >1000 deaths/wk
16/ Which is quite an amazing thing to say when they’ve allowed >140 individual transactions to go through in 7 weeks on accounts with barely 1/10th of that volume in a year.
@HSBC_UK
@agnostoxxx
@HSBC_UK
My mother! And really, it’s not about her. It’s about having a “human” function within all organisations. We’re living creatures with feelings and lives.
My car got stolen outside my house in November 2020. They just drive off with it. Police never even came round but I registered the car as stolen etc. I never heard from them again but they did just send me a letter to prosecute me for speeding last week . In the stolen car... 👏
@HSBC_UK
@AskNationwide
19/ If it was even possible to be more faceless and less human… nearly a week. She has no money left, no bank account, no hint of a resolution…
@HSBC_UK
1/ A 🧵 on UK stockmarket - Today we announced a capital raise at a significant premium to the share price and an intention to delist from the London AIM market. Firstly, I am obviously sorry for the loss of liquidity/tax benefits that some retail investors will lose. That said,
Just announced: We've raised £28.9m and are planning to delist from London’s
#AIM
. Proceeds from the fundraise will enable continued progression of our
#RNAi
assets towards the clinic and accelerated development of our
#AI
approaches! Find out more: $ETX
My 2010s
👨👩👧👦 Became a dad for 3rd time
🤪 Became a biotech CEO
🌖 Lost my aunt
🌓 Lost my uncle
🌘 Lost my Dad
💦 Lost my house for 5 years - leak
🌑 Mother of kids and ex dx leukaemia
🥵 Got divorced
🆘 Lost myself
😍 Met my current wife
🤷🏻♂️ Lost my job
🏋️♀️ It’s been a struggle
Anal beads transmitting chess moves 🤸🏼♂️. I’ve seen it all now. I’ve also seen and know that very strong GMs have cheated against me online. et tu chess? Left with nothing.
#ChessAnalBeads
#chess
Currently obsessed with the notion that Hans Niemann has been cheating at the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament using wireless anal beads that vibrate him the correct moves.
In 2014, I was watching the London Chess Classic. Viktor Korchnoi was standing next to me, he was obviously frail. I asked him to play a blitz game and he said no. Later, he came and found me and said” I would love to play you but I’m just too old.” A ferocious fighter. 😌
#Chess
Some personal news. I have covid. No one seems to care that much or feed me. I have a fever, muscle aches and I’m taking ibuprofen (400mg). I’m blessed to be surrounded by people who don’t seem to care that much. No one even calls me. Actually, I feel quite s****y :)
7/ Chess is a hard game. A lonely game. A good chess player needs ever increasing resilience and will to win. Bodhana has it all on top of a surreal talent. Finally, her dad who gets tortured watching all her games, is equally a superstar. They’re just very nice people. 👏👏👏
And if anyone had any doubt that
@DingLiren
was some timid and shy introvert, this chess move can only be made by a fearless warrior. It psychologically broke his opponent and won the match.
#chess
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Bukowski. More true than ever.
#COVID19
#Omicron
This is the most unbelievable, crazy and impressive opening I’ve ever seen played by a GM against a GM in chess. Genius. Lunatic. Psychopath. And he won.
#chess
#Chess
My gut feel after $srra and $halo is that this is the beginning of a wave of acquisitions, mergers, MBO/take private, tender offers and corporate action in $xbi.
4/ Bodhana and I (and her Dad) quickly became friends. Everything I showed her produced instant results, her pattern recognition and memory are phenomenal. She now has proper chess teachers like
@GMJohnEmms
and
@JonSpeelman
.
#chess
6/ And that was the day I knew for sure that Bodhana will be a superstar. I’ve played chess for over 40 years, beaten some of the best players in the world and even if I say so myself… to beat me at the age of 8 at blitz chess is no easy feat :)
#chess
#omicron
is the endgame.
#COVID19
will have trials and tribulations for some of us like any disease but essentially mild. And
#LongCovid
will be rare and clung onto by the remaining ghouls. There, I said it.
2/ I banged out my moves, paid no attention. After about 8 moves in a Caro Kann, I looked up and thought WOW. What is this monster? I worked very (very) hard to win that game and the next. That’s when I first met Bodhana Sivanandan.
#chess
3/ I asked her dad who was watching who taught her chess and he said she learnt it herself from YouTube during lockdown. I told him she was a very special player and I would teach her here and there when I had time.
#chess
@ginger_gm
Give me a break. To get to even play
@vishy64theking
should be an honour for you. To beat him like that is beyond cowardly. Man up and apologise. There are young kids watching.
I am frankly stunned at the lack of basic empathy towards Israel. No matter your position, nationality, It’s ok to be horrified on a human level for a short while at least. No buts, just horrified and sympathetic.
Born in 🇺🇦, Bronstein narrowly missed becoming the World Chess Champion in 1951. I’ve played hundreds of blitz games against both players. What a game! Bronstein-Ljubojevic, Petropolis 1973.
#chess
5/ I am regularly in touch with Bodhana and her dad. I help here and there but one day around 6 months ago we played a few blitz games online. Bodhana was beating me. Really beating me. I wasn’t being soft or not paying attention…
#chess
Very few people in the world can understand what
@DingLiren
and
@lachesisq
have just been through. I don’t have the words to describe how much in awe of them I am. The quality and depth of all the games were simply astonishing.
#chess
Three stages in chess: opening, middlegame and endgame. My openings are hopelessly out of date. I am grossly overestimating my middlegame positions when checked with a computer after the game. And my endgame technique is just non existent. Apart from that, I’m in good shape.