Age gap: 22 going on 110

Dubai: When 22-year-old Traill Iain Skye Stocker called Emirates NBD Bank for a replacement for his Visa debit card, little did he expect to be told by the bank that he was over 100 years old.

On May 19, when Stocker called Emirates NBD requesting a new Visa debit card, he was asked for verification details by the call centre employee. "Once I'd given them my account number and the date of my last transaction, they asked me for my date of birth. It's January 9, 1988. I was told that my information didn't match theirs and that there was nothing they could do until I went to the main branch in Baniyas Square, Deira, and proved my identity."

Later that day, Stocker went to the bank, proved his identity and applied for a new card. Three days later, when there was still no card in the mail, he went to the Emirates NBD branch at Healthcare City, only to be informed that his date of birth on their system showed the year as 1900.

Questions and more...

"How could they possibly assume I am 110 years old? If that was the case, how would I still have a visa for the UAE? How would I still be alive?" he asks.

He then had to fill out another form requesting a change of date to the more realistic 1988. This means there will now be a further delay of another three working days, since each transaction takes between three and five working days to process.

"I was told that the bank had updated their computer system in May and, as a result, a virus was causing the computer to generate random numbers," said Stocker. "If so, why should I have to suffer the consequences?"

Stocker says he's going on annual leave in a few days and needs the Visa card before that.

Jay Zee, a executive, had a similar complaint. Unable to withdraw money from an ATM machine on July 25, she contacted Emirates NBD only to be informed that their system was being updated and her card may have been temporarily disabled. "Yesterday was an emergency and I needed money urgently. When I called them, I was told that the card would be activated within a few days. This is shocking. Aren't banks supposed to inform customers before messing with their accounts?"

No comment was immediately available from Emirates NBD.