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Credit Agricole Problems


sevenmilesout
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I have lived in France for six years now and opened the account with Credit Agricole when we bought the house. I have had a couple of problems in the past, mainly to do with systems, but I have ignored them and carried on.

However over the last two months, I have had three problems all caused by them, coupled with lack of co-operation between the various Credit Agricole regions, lack of flexibility, understanding and any common sense.

I have given them numerous chances to rectify their mistakes, act with a little urgency and generally give me a little customer service. Last Friday, I gave up.......enough is enough. So I decided to close the account as soon as my final direct debit is paid. I tried to look at my account this morning and they have blocked it !!!

So, the question is: Does anyone have any recommendations for my new account? It has to have a good on-line facility.

I'm not going to name and shame here as it is not in the spirit of this forum, but after the latest "cata" Last weekend I decided to promote a page on Facebook for people with banking problems in France with CA, with a view to helping, putting a little humour into the site and having a "pop" back at CA for treating me so badly. I would appreciate it if any members could have a look, give me any suggestions, contribute etc. etc., just to get the project going.

You can find it on Facebook, if you search "Credit Agricole Page Pour Les Plaintes"

Thank you for listening...
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Dear 7 miles, I could dash off an article of several hundred words for your Facebook page but, I have decided to put all the problems and injustices I have suffered at the hands of CA in the poubelle, never to be brought up for examination again.

It was an exasperating, painful and costly experience.  I have but one word of warning.  When you do close your account, do not assume that all your standing orders and direct debits would be cancelled with the closure.

Instead, close all such instructions separately and be prepared to pay for each closure you make.  Pay through the nose but at least you could be free of their clutches forever[:D]

Bon courage et bonne chance

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In the interests of fairness-as I also read the same post on another forum-we have had a CA account for many years, even before we bought a house here, and have never had any problems. We are with CA Britline and everything has always been dealt with efficiently and politely. It 's unfair yo tar the whole of CA with the same brush.
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Lots of info here on how to go about it.

http://www.lesclesdelabanque.com/Web/Cdb/Particuliers/Content.nsf/DocumentsByIDWeb/6W9M39?OpenDocument

Personally I believe that all the banks can be equally good or bad, but banking with Credit Agricole complicates things owing to their regional structure.

I think the same regionality can apply to Caisse D'Epargne and Banque Populaire.

Personally I would just choose the friendliest one with a bank near to your abode.

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You are right about the regional structure. I also have an account with Banque Populaire, which as you say is also regional but in my case the two regions where I have interests (Languedoc and Midi Pyrénées) are united in one large BP Region...

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Got to agree with Mac. We've found Britline very helpful.. Procedures in French Banks in general are very bureaucratic and slow and there's little that can be done about that. However, whenever I've needed something doing a quick e-mail to Britline usually has a reply by the following working day. If things are complicated there may also be a phone call from them. On the other hand we have an account with a local CA which has a sum of money in it to enable easy access to larger sums if necessary. Dealings with this branch are slow and cumbersome but as we rarely use the account there's no problem.
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We have had an account with CA since1993. We have moved it from Dept 82 to Dept 11, and twice between branches in nearby towns, with no problems whatsoever.

We have always enjoyed courteous and efficient service, and any small difficulties have been quickly resolved after a chat with our conseiller.

So, having used 4 different branches without problems, I don't understand why some people apparently have such huge problems with them.

I wonder if these could be due to poor communication? - and I don't mean just language problems.

 

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I have been with three French banks. The first was CA Britline and I changed when I realised that it was regional banking which was no good for my business. I went to Banque Popular and was with them for a fair few years until the lost €60k during a transfer between my cheque account and savings account and refused to credit my account until they had found the money. I then moved to BNP and that has been pretty good up until the staff change after which the face to face service has gone dramatically down hill. Out of the three banks I would say that the BNP online banking, especially as they have revamped it over the last six weeks is very good, no problem with local and international tranfers etc plus you can do just about anything online.

 

My personal observation is that it is not the bank so much but the quality of staff you may have at your local bank. When I closed my account at BP, and we are talking six digit amounts, nobody batted an eyelid, they didn't even ask why. I said the the guy who I met with to close the accounts "would you like to know why I am closing my account?", "Not really" he replied. I told him anyway " because your 'F'ing useless". Would something in the public domain like Facebook make them change, well no, it's France and thats how it is. If you were in the UK of course you might get a result but not here I am afraid.

 

Here is a quick story about how stupid French banks are. Last week I was given a French cheque by a guest. I never noticed that they had forgotten to sign it and neither did the cashier when I presented it to my bank. Got an email from my bank manager about it not being signed and to pop in. When I got there I was told to take the cheque outside, sign it my self and represent it. I pointed out that it was fraudulent to do this and was told nobody ever checks a signature on a cheque in France unless there is a problem. I didn't sign it but added €10 handling to the amount and got the guest to pay with PayPal. I was quite horified that this appears common practice and I guess it is what the French do. So if you think that if you lose your chequebook it does not matter because the cheques need your signature you can forget it.

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Whilst I am sure that there must be good CA branches somewhere, I can't agree about nomoss's comment about poor communication.

After you have written a letter, asking to close your account and after you have taken the trouble to hand the letter into your branch, I don't see how much clearer my communication needed to be?

They claimed never to have received the letter and continued to pay all our DDs, etc and then charged us for going overdrawn.

THEN we had to pay a fee for closing every one of our DDs.  But, although expensive, it was a valuable lesson and I have never set up any DDs ever since.

Edit:  I am not talking about Britline of which I have no knowledge.  In my early days in France, I determined that I would get to grips with everything I needed to and kept clear of any services etc that had the word "Brit" in it.  Being rather more secure in my knowledge of French these days, I am happy to use anything Brit that I thought would give me the results I need[:D][:P]

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[quote user="Quillan"]

 I didn't sign it but added €10 handling to the amount and got the guest to pay with PayPal. I was quite horified that this appears common practice and I guess it is what the French do. [/quote]

I'd be horrified too if you charged me €10 if I forgot to sign the cheque, top marks for integration though [:P]

joking apart I would not have signed the cheque either in case the person opposed it and then you would really be in the mire.

I doubt that signatures are checked as part of the cheque clearing process in any country, your bank will have verified that there was a signature but I dont think the issuing bank check against the signature of the account holder unless fraud or theft has been signalled to them.

I dont/wont have a business account, I just use my personal account, I have a cheque from a Customer where the payee is the property name not my own, I fully expect it to be paid, time will tell.

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I had a situation where the cheque was signed, but not made out correctly.  Something similar occurred. (make it out properly yourself - which sadly that time I did ...  I would not give most of the French banks any custom, if I did not live here.. customer service is non existent, online banking - what a hoot!

The one time I closed a CA account (we are still with CA but in another dept) I had a problem, because they said they couldn't close it due to payments being due.  I checked - none I'd created  - turned out to be some insurance the bank made you take out which had never been obvious - I found it, told them I'd never asked for it, so please cancel . that done, it was closed.  Otherwise it would have gone on and on. 

Banks are like most other "services" here - good in parts .. you just need to find the best one ..or rather, the one which seems to suit you best .... until the staff change!

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I have only had dealings with the CA in my old region through the

association I used to run. And they were awful in both the branches I

used, and these branches were in two different departments. That you have had problems does not surprise me at all.

Personally

I would not bank with the CA, and would never ever recommend them to

anyone. I have never used Britline, I daresay it didn't exist when I

moved to France and in general we simply got stuck in to french life,

including the very 'odd' banking system and that from a former UK bank clerk!

Our current bank is OK,

not wonderful, but OK, which is actually quite remarkable for France as

far as I can tell. As a couple we have been with 5 different banks in

France. I suppose whilst we live in the UK now, we'll have to stick with the bank we have, I just hope that things do not change for the worse at any point in the future.

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Another (rare) satisfied customer here.  But then I am with the Alsace Vosges regional bank and it could well be that some Germanic thoroughness (I shy away from using the misunderstood efficiency word) has rubber off. 
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We've been with CA for 12 years. We've had several changes in managers and each have been extremely friendly/helpful/courteous. However, when we decided to close a savings account due to it not being tax efficient for us, we wasted more than an hour explaining our tax situation when in the midst of it we were interrupted by a cleaning company who had arrived to clean the chairs we were sitting on and who replaced them with fresh ones - you can imagine the palava as we had to move the manager's desk to get his chair out and then put the desk back etc - the manager told us they clean the chairs often as a lot of the older clients wet themselves whilst sitting waiting - yikes!! Anyhow in the end the manager being so nice and persuasive that instead of closing both accounts we kept them open with 100e in each and opened the Livrets. I guess it would have affected his sales targets?

The real downside of CA is the 'access your account 24/7' well you can 'access 24/7' but whatever you buy or draw out on a friday is not shown until at the very earliest the following tuesday I guess that's cos they are closed on a monday and so you can't get an up to date balance.

As for cheques, we order fuel for our neighbour. The first time our neighbour posted a cheque for 600e made out in the usual manner. The fuel man changed the amount as he went over by 2 euros saying it was OK to do that as he wasn't allowed to accept the cash difference and then said for future cheques they can be made out for whatever amount as he can change it but they must NOT be dated as he will do that on the day of delivery! So for the last few years we receive the cheque he always has to change the amount and of course it is left open for him to date it.

Mrs KG
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