Credit Agricole du Languedoc

[toni]

As those of you with  accounts in CA du Midi and CA du Gard already know a merger has taken place( on May 1st) between these two banks which are now known as CA du languedoc. I have just been reading on another forum that this means (incredibly!!) that most of us have had our IBAN and BIC no's changed and on checking my most recent statement have found that this is in fact the case. Has anyone else been affected, what does this mean for all those of us who rely on RIBs to pay utilities etc??

[Cjlaws]

[quote user="toni"] what does this mean for all those of us who rely on RIBs to pay utilities etc??[/quote]

Don't worry. The banks take care of it.

[goose]

We had a scary problem when the CA of Caen merged with that of Normandie last year.  Our IBAN and clé numbers changed but we hadn't noticed - until my husband's pension money did not appear on the April statement.  We waited patiently, thinking it was taking a long time to come through (it happens!!) but after a couple of days into May, rang the CA who told us that although most bank tranfers etc would be okay, it just so happened that there were certain types of tranfers etc that didn't fit into that slot.  They said that we must notify the pension provider of the new numbers and everything would be okay.  We hastily made that call to be told that they had electronically sent out the money as usual but it hadn't been returned to them so they couldn't possibly send it again until it was returned.   So - back to the bank who eventually told us that the money had indeed been returned.  Back to the pension provider who said it hadn't.  By this time we were very worried as we live off our pensions - my husband's private one being the bulk (he retired early) of our income.  In all, we were without his pension for two whole months - the time that it took for it to be sorted out.  The money was somehow lost in the ether for all this time.  Someone probably profited from the interest but it wasn't us - we just had an incredible amount of worry.  The CA allowed us a small overdraft but it didn't make up for the ridiculous lack of information and inefficiency.   The chap we first spoke to told us that letters informing people of all of the changes and the possible problems had been sent out but when I told him we hadn't received one he went and checked with his manager then came back and sheepishly apologised and said they were going to be sent out clients that month - we received ours in June !!!!!  Long after our likely heart attacks!

We then sent new RIB forms to everyone who sent in monthly fiches for signature authorising payment - ie: France Telecom, top-up health insurance etc.  So I would advise you to do this immediately.  I'm sure you know that you can down-load the RIB forms from your account on-line.

[toni]

Yes Goose, this is exactly the type of scenario that I fear may occur with many people, I for one would not put all my faith in the bank to handle everything smoothly! I think it is therefore important that people who may be affected to be aware of what is happening and to keep an eye on their own particular situation.

[cooperlola]

I have had a letter from CA Normandie, with a list of all the regular payments which can no longer be made, and those they have taken care of themselves.  There's a form of the letter you can use on the CA website.

[5-element]

Toni - I have been only too aware of the merging for CA du Midi - I am still going through some unbelievable problems indirectly caused by this merging, and for which they are refusing to take responsibility - too complicated to go into it here and it would probably not help anybody to know as a copycat situation is unlikely to happen to anyone else.

CA du Midi  only ADDED to my problems rather than helped in resolving them. They have been uncooperative, more than useless, not even acknowledging my mail, and I am looking to removing my accounts from them. However, for the same  issue, the CA Rhone-Alpes have been fantastic. Really helpful, on the ball, available, and waiving one of their fees since the circumstances were so dreadful, and not at all from my making or theirs.

I know that the various branches (or regions?) have a franchise, so they all vary enormously, depending on the staff they have as well as the management.

I was unaware of the RIB and IBAN issues with CA du Midi. . Thank you for bringing it up, now I will have to go and check those.

 

[Benjamin]

goose

Did CA of Caen put their grovelling apology in writing or was it just verbal? [:D]

And what did you do with the compensation cheque and your overdraft costs that they would have obviously written off when they realised that they had caused all the problems? [:P]

Or did you get the normal French banking cr*p treatment?

[Sharkster]

Thanks to the OP.  I had not realised the IBAN number etc had changed and I regularly have money transferred from abroad and it would have been a real headache if you had not pointed it out and I would not have given it a thought either and would have wondered why my money did not arrive as usual.  Thanks again.

[toni]

Thanks also to Cooperlola, I have located that sample letter on the CA Normandie website, it will prove useful as a template.

[goose]

No, Benjamin,  we received nothing in writing - didn't expect it either.  I forgot to mention, however, that they also changed our personal codes so that we were unable to access our account on-line !!  When I rang them about this oversight, the chap said he shouldn't really give me the code over the phone - then did so!   Obviously we changed it as soon as we accessed the account.

Another little thing that stuck in our minds regarding CA - some four years ago when we were here in the process of buying our house and about to make the first signing, we wanted to know whether some expected funds had gone into our account so went into the branch at Guéret with all our info to ask if she could check (not knowing at that point that they were franchised) and the cashier said she wasn't able to do that but if we rang our actual branch, they'd tell us.  We rang them expecting to have to give all sorts of personal info and passwords etc but after just telling her our account number she told us she wasn't able to tell us over the phone whether specific funds gone in but she could tell us the balance.  

Other than the horrendous merger business, they haven't been too bad in the light of other friends' tales about their banks (not CA).

 

[Le Petomane]

If it's any comfort to anyone, all my usual overseas transfers for May have come in OK, plus a completely new transfer from Canada for which I had provided my old IBAN reference. Some bits of the new CA are getting it right.

[5-element]

OH went to our local branch today to check his IBAN and RIB - the chap there said he'd never heard that there had been any code changes at all with the merger, had no idea what we could possibly be concerned about!!![:D] I'm beginning to think our branch is the one that time forgot....[:'(]

We will check again though. This particular chap at the bank has been clueless and incompetent before, giving us wrong information about transfer costs before, which resulted in us paying an extra 30-40euros every time, unnecessarily.

[toni]

If you are able to, go and have a look at your account on-line, you can then download a new RIB for your a/c (just click on  IBAN/RIB on the top of the page. In my case my own a/c no had not changed but the code guichet and clé RIB had. Perhaps seeing a copy of this might help clarify things with your local CA man. If you are still worried it might be worth using the template letter on the CA normandie site to inform relevant parties. The only items that I have being dealt with by RIB are utilities etc so I think I'll wait to see how my July EDF bill fares before I panic (hopefully I'm not being over optimistic!)

[5-element]

Thanks Toni, will do.