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Barclays unveiled a video featuring David Hasselhoff earlier this month, as the pop-culture icon cheered on a customer shopping with the bank's new U.K. PayTag device.
June 4
Perhaps Colin Miller is just a little too good at his job.
News outlets across the U.K. are reporting that Miller, a Luciano Pavarotti impersonator, was denied a personalized Barclays debit card because the photo he submitted for the card looked too much like, well… the late Three Tenors singer Pavarotti.
Miller, 66, learned of the error when his application for a photo card was denied.
"I was shocked,"
The bank prohibits pictures of "celebrities, musicians, sportspersons, entertainers, public figures, film stars, cartoon characters, members of the Royal Family or other famous people," according to
Miller added that getting the matter straightened out was in itself an operatic affair.
"When I phoned to complain it took 45 minutes of being passed around their call center, on my own phone, at my cost, before someone gave me any kind of answer," he told the newspaper.
"Then she said she didn't know what the issue was, but suggested it may be because I don't own the copyright to Luciano Pavarotti's image," he said.
Barclays has since acknowledged the error and is working on Miller's application, according to bank spokesman Andrew Bond.
"Clearly in this instance our processing team has understandably mistaken Mr. Miller for the opera singer Luciano Pavarotti who we understand Mr. Miller impersonates," Bond wrote in an email.
"We are now in the process of contacting Mr. Miller so that he can resubmit his application with the original image, so that Mr. Miller will have his Barclays personalized debit card, complete with his chosen image," he added.
