The liar strikes again: why didn’t he just walk journalists to the nearest ATM and use his plastic card?

Adrian Delia called a press conference today at which he was asked about his accounts with the Bank of Valletta. He said he “wrote to the bank” asking it for a letter confirming that he still has accounts open there.

Then he added that he had emailed the bank, rather than writing formally. How smart of him. This means he won’t get a reply because banks require a request of that nature to be made in an actual letter for their records, signed with an authentic signature. Now he can say that the bank didn’t reply, or that the bank is taking long to reply.

If he really wanted that letter, he would have gone to the Bank of Valletta’s head office, requested it in person, and waited until it was written.

The Malta Independent journalist asked him when he expects to have a reply, reminding him that there are time constraints as party electors vote on Saturday. “I don’t know,” he said, “But maybe I can buy you a drink and pay by cheque.”

To which the journalist should have shot back, “Why not just show me your cheque-book? You don’t need to write out the cheque. Or better still, bring out your wallet and show me your CashLink card or your BOV Visa.”

Because every current account has a plastic card linked to it, and if this man Delia wished to prove to journalists at that press conference that he does indeed have a current account or more at the Bank of Valletta, all he needed to do was bring out his wallet, pull out his cards, walk those journalists over to the nearest Bank of Valletta ATM, and use them. BUT HE DIDN’T.

With 21st-century banking, you don’t need a letter from the bank to prove you have an account there. You have on-line banking. You have bank statements that can be downloaded from your online banking account. You have plastic cards that can be used in an ATM. And this man tries to fool journalists by talking about letters to the bank and cheque books, as though it’s 1988.

Journalists should also take note of the fact that Delia says “accounts” when what I said the bank closed down were CURRENT accounts. His omission of the qualifying word ‘current’ when making his excuses to journalists and saying that he still has accounts at the bank is not a careless oversight. A loan account is an account. A savings account is an account. But I think we can drop the latter and just go with the loan account.