If anything has ever emphasised the pernicious follies of capitalism, it is this.
The great institutions of this system - the banks - are often portrayed as cold bastions of indifference to the passions and interests of us regular folk.
This story of Halifax denying a Northern Ireland fan tickets to Euro 2016 is a stark example to support that portrayal.
Fans applying for tickets via the UEFA portal were advised to ensure there were sufficient funds in their bank accounts should they be successful in being allocated tickets. If UEFA were unable to take the money straight away, fans would miss out on tickets as a result.
Northern Ireland fan Anton McCormick applied for tickets to all of his country's group games, and he made sure he had enough money in his Halifax account to process the payment should he be successful.
For further peace of mind, McCormick's father contacted the bank weeks in advance of the ticket allocation to account for the payment, as banks often block unrecognised payments as a measure of security.
Last week, McCormick learned that he had successfully secured a pair of tickets for each of the North's group games.
Sadly, things went awry from here. Having heard of other fans having payments deducted from their bank account without McCormick's account balance affected, McCormick's father rang Halifax to confirm whether a payment to UEFA was pending, only to be told that the bank had blocked the transaction.
My father phoned the bank and they said they had declined the payment.
What actually happened was that the payment was chosen for random selection. Halifax were meant to contact us to check if the payment was legitimate, but they didn't even follow their own process and it was just declined.
What hideous indifference from Halifax. McCormick and his father are lifelong Northern Ireland fans and have followed the team home and away for years. The prospect of missing out on the North's first major tournament appearance since 1986 is understandably gutting:
My dad turns 50 this year and the tickets were a present - we were both going to go.
We haven't qualified for 30 years, so he was really disappointed and upset. I've never seen my dad cry before, but he was in tears at this. It was so disappointing. It has ruined our hopes of attending this once-in-a-lifetime event.
Realising their error, the kind folk at Halifax offered McCormick £100 as compensation. Of course, this compensation is largely useless, as McCormick explains.
The only thing Halifax have done is give us £100 compensation, but that won't do anything for us. We had already booked our flights and accommodation.
If we want to proceed any further, we have to contact the Financial Ombudsman. We sent them a letter, but who knows when we will hear back.
This is a really terrible mixture of ignorance and incompetence by the bank, and we hope they offer to correct their mistake and use their corporate might to get McCormick and his father to the finals.
