Why offer me one thing and do another?

For many years I have banked with First Direct.  They're a pretty average bank except they do everything by phone and online.  Part of HSBC, they may well come through the recession unscathed.  Who knows?  And for many years they have made error after error.  So I am not at all surprised at their latest lack of customer service.

Because interest rates are now falling through the floor I wanted to migrate two of my accounts, one that handles my holiday fund and another that handles some other small monies, into higher yield accounts.  I used their secure online message to initiate that, with a request for a response by telephone.

I logged on today and found a secure message saying that they could not handle my request and that I had to phone them.

So my question for First Direct is "Why ask me what you want me to do if you do what you were always going to do anyway?  How does that show good Customer Service?"

Think about your service operation.  Is there a risk that they will do that, too?  And, if so, why ask me one thing and do another?  Why?  What do you think you can possibly achieve except ill will?  Or do you, also, try to spell "customer service" with an "F"?

Update, 16 September 2009: Yes, they did it again!