17 Apr 2012 11:17 PM:
I own a medium sized business in Spain and have always used Bancaja. They recently mergered with Bankia.
On 6th April, we went to our online banking to discover that the website had changed to Bankia, and our banking codes to access banking did not work anymore. No notice at all that this would happen. You just had to wait until 5 days later when the bank re-opened on 10th April after the Easter holidays to access your account. Very disruptive and embarrassing as we were forced to pay many of our suppliers late.
On 10th April when the bank finally re-opened, we queued for hours to see someone but couldn’t get in the door, such was the chaos from all the punters in the same dreadful boat. We could not reach anyone on the helpline and still can´t a week later.
On 11th April, we finally managed to make a few transfers in the bank which were extremely urgent. We were provided with new bank codes to access our online banking. However, internet banking doesn´t actually work. If we try and use it, it crashes. We have been to the bank every day since, always waiting for a long time, and no one can help us. We cannot get through on the customer service telephone number. We are told we can come into the bank every day and do our transfers in person, but first of all this means queing for hours to get it done, and second of all they wnat to charge us extra for the priveledge!
We were also told our bank account numbers had changed with no notification, so all the customers trying to pay us would have the payments refused. Very embarrassing and unprofessional. I do not understand why we were not told our bank account number was changing. We send hundreds of customers our payment details every week and now they have all gone out with the wrong information!!!
It has been 10 days and we cannot properly access our bank account or our funds and we have suferred a great deal of embarrassment, hassle and inconvenience. We cannot pay our suppliers on time and this has caused problems for them as they cannot pay their own bills. It´s a complete nightmare.
We do not understand why Bankia did not contact the Bancaja customers to let them know that their internet login codes would not work, and provide them with new login codes before the change was made. they would have known well in advance and it seems like a total disregard for their customers to cut them off for days on end without access to their funds.
We are very unhappy that Bankia did not write to the Bancaja customers and let them know that their bank account details had changed so they could ensure their own customers were notified.
We are also very unhappy that the changes were made right before the bank was closed for 5 days – taking away all possibility for customers to get help when they needed it.
We know numerous private individuals who can’t access their money, can’t pay their bills and can´t get into their online banking. This has disrupted my business, caused me to lose customers and wasted days and days of my time.
Is there any mechanism existing in Spain to prevent banks from treating their customers this way? Surely you have a right to access your own money?
Thread:
Bancaja merger with Bankia....the customer´s nightmare
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