lizzie15again Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 Hi. Some of you will remember me from way back ( several name changes due to log in probs ). We have had a place in France for 9 years and were really happy with all our banking matters until Dec 2004 ( until then, 7 years happy banking with CA ). I wrote of my woes some while back ( can't find the original post on a Search) and thought you might like an update. In Dec 2004, just before Xmas, someone rang our French branch from UK claiming to be my husband. He asked for 13,000 euros to be transferred to a bank in Majorca ( no, we have no Spanish bank accounts). We have never rung up our bank to ask for money to be transferred anywhere. This was followed by a fax from the same person, using my "signature" ( was a good copy-how did they get it? ). The bank failed to ring the UK to make sure this was bona fide and let the money go off to Majorca. They rang me in France, where we were staying for Christmas, a couple of days later telling me I was overdrawn and this was very serious ! We went to the bank ( whilst we were there they had another call from UK asking for more money !), then off to the Gendarmerie to report the theft. The bank began by being helpful, then didn't return our calls. They refused to reimburse us. We took them to court. At the end of June this year we heard that we had won our case as they should have made the UK phone call and they should have kept a copy of the original call demanding the money- they did neither. We have a hollow victory as so far, 20 months along the line, we have received no money back from CA. They are considering an appeal, which everyone tells us they will lose but apparently this is the normal course of action for French banks. It could take another 2 years before we see our money again ( over 3 and a half years since it was. stolen ). Beware ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 CA seems to be taking a bit of a caning on the forum recently - is it just them or is it every French bank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizzie15again Posted August 9, 2006 Author Share Posted August 9, 2006 Don't know the answer to that , but I do know that for 7 years I used to write on here in praise of CA !! We had trouble free experiences up until something went wrong !! I now bank with La Poste, have done for 20 months, so far so good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 What a story ! Aren't there procedures for identification when asking for a wire transfer. My bank (USA) won't take a wire transfer over the phone without asking so many personal details it is amazing. Then, they phone back to double check. I have to admit I have never asked my C/A France bank to make a wire transfer. Money always seems to be coming the other direction. I do however, try never to keep that much money in my French account, just what I have to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizzie15again Posted August 9, 2006 Author Share Posted August 9, 2006 As far as I know- no questions asked,mind you, they never rang back to UK to ask any! No, I don't normally keep that much money in the a/c but we were having work done so the money was there to pay the builders. We were overdrawn because I had written all the cheques before Christmas, when I arrived in France, to pay them all. How did someone KNOW there would be all that money in the a/c?. If they tried that normally there would not be 13000 euros to take! There had been more in as I had lots of work to pay for but had already written cheques for most of it when the money was taken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 Could they not track the person down by going to the bank the money was sent to?? That person must have an account there or must have HAD an account there, with an address attached to it. Normally, to open a bank account you have to provide personal details. Perhaps it was all faked, but that would imply a real con artist. And, you are right, this is someone that must have had personal knowledge of you and your financial situation. Obviously, they had all your bank details (I'm assuming they gave those details when they called for the transfer). Could it have been someone you wrote a French check to and then used that data to make the transfer. Did the bank not begin a procedure to investigate? I can't believe you had to go to court to get your own money back. Terrible.I'm going on... I'll stop now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizzie15again Posted August 9, 2006 Author Share Posted August 9, 2006 We were the ones who went to the police ! We have never heard anything more about the case,the police said the money had gone on to North Africa when we went to report it, don't know if that was fact or surmise. The bank was more interested in covering its back than investigating ! We tried to find out from the police what the state of play was but got nowhere [:(] Meanwhile, we are still 13000 euros missing.If the bank goes to appeal we will get the huge sum of 2 % interest on the money when we eventually get it back[:@] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montybird Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 Hi Lizzie,What a nightmare you've been having. We thought we had problems with CA with whom we originally banked on arrival here over 2 years ago but nothing like that I'm glad to say. We now bank with BNP but I must admit I'm really dissapointed with French banking on the whole. We moved from CA to BNP because they refused to give us any sort of decent interest rate on the rather large sum we had then (I'm afraid it's nearly all been spent now, but that's another story). A CA clerk told us at the time that because we weren't official 'French residents' it was illegal for them to offer us any kind of decent savings account. Anyway, we promptly moved accounts after checking out a few different banks to somewhere that was more helpful. They guy at BNP was initially very helpful but he's let me down on numerious occassions recently. The last straw being that he promised to waiver the std monthly charge if I agreed to stay with him after threatening to go elsewhere... again. He did say that he couldn't indefinately waiver it but would do it on a 3 monthly bases - i.e. I go back to him every 3 months to make a new agreement. Well, that was 3 months ago, we've never had it waivered yet and are still paying the 7,30€ monthly charge, when I tackled him about it he just made flimsy appologies and promised to get it sorted. He's on holiday for the rest of this month (surprise, surprise) so I'm going to tackle him again early September but I don't hold out much hope of success. It seems that you're just not valued as a customer here, but I guess that's pretty normal in France... C'est la vie!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 The monthly charge at 7,30€ seems a bit high. I think it's standard practice with most French banks to put you on the highest tarif and see if you squeal.If yiu decide to stay see if there's a lower monthly fee that would still suit your needs.Benjamin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 [quote user="Montybird"]are still paying the 7,30€ monthly charge, [/quote]Sorry - for bank transfers or for having an account? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gastines Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 CA did us proud as well. 2 days before going on hols to Med. we transferred 30000e to UK from a savings account. On going to a cash point ,we found we were 27000e overdrawn.They'd got the account number wrong,fortunately we had a copy of the details. CA where we were didn't want to deal with it as that is Brittany, nothing todo with us!! When they put it right we had a charge of 86e for interest while we were overdrawn!! The manager hadn't dealt with my wife before, but he soon credited us with the interest. Try dealing with the Halifax if you want real headaches. The worrying thing, is that these people have control of your money and they just don't make mistakes.HA Ha.Regards. Out to buy a biscuit tin.St.Malo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montybird Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 [quote user="Cassis"]Sorry - for bank transfers or for having an account?[/quote]For having an account! You can get an account with lower charges but you only get a cheque guarantee card and not a proper Visa cash card... too useful, especially for 24 hour petrol etc.They were also charging 0,50 cts every time you accessed your account on their website although, since January this year they went to great pains to advertise it's now 'free'. I never used to be a pessimist but since living here...anyway when I checked with the guy at BNP to clarify this he confirmed it's free unless you actually do any on-line transactions. That's very generous of them then??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 In that case it sounds pretty much in line with what we are charged by BNP. Comes to 11 euros a month for the cheque account plus a Carte Bleue for each of us, including Internet access (they also used to charge for this until earlier this year). Would be about 7 or 8 euros if we just had one card. As I understand it these prices are fixed by whatever bank you're with, not negotiable. Are the charges very different from bank to bank if you want chequing facilities and a debit/credit card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 CassisWe get pretty much the same as you but with only one card for 3,90€ per month from CA. It also includes insurance cover in case of lost or stolen card and free Bank Drafts. Last year it paid for itself when we bought the house.There are both higher and lower levels of charging but with varying levels of "goodies" to go with it.I still find it needles with me after years and years of free UK banking including a free debit card which we now pay 33€ a year for.Benjamin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 3.9€ a month, or even double it, sounds a lot better than 11€ a month. I wonder how they can be so different for the same service? After half a lifetime in the UK, I hate paying the French banks for having our money, too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 Looking at this again we pay 3,90€ per month plus 33€ per annum for the debit card. Does your monthly fee include the debit card?Benjamin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 Yes, ours includes 2 debit cards, the second being half price. One in my name, one Jude's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 So, now that we're comparing apples and apples there isn't a lot of difference between our two sets of bank charges.Benjamin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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