Are French Banks improving?

[Baz]

I had a surprise today when a new cheque book arrived at my UK home from Societe Generale recorded delivery without any request. In the past getting a new cheque sent to me was very difficult as they always  preferred I  collected it form the Branch.

It would appear that Societe Generale are now following the UK Banks system of automatically replacing a cheque book when most of the cheques have been used. The only difference is that the service is free in the UK, but a charge of 3.61€  by the French bank.

Whilst, I do not intend to complain about the charge. It does beg the question whether the bank is entitled to charge for a service not requested by the customer.

Baz

[Nick Trollope]

I have to point out that CA (Cotes d'Armor) have always done this for me and not charged over an above the 3,60/month standing fee. Unlike some, I have had few problems with CA and when they do occur, they have always fixed them quickly.

French banks' service seems terribly variable, from bank to bank, region to region and even branch to branch. I guess, from comments elsewhere, that I have been lucky.

 

[YCCMB]

As Nick says, it's probably down to each branch and personal experience of the service. I posted recently about CA Britline and the absurdity of their service for English-speaking customers which involves sending all their information in French.

Last week, visiting the main branch of CA in Saintes, Charente-Maritime, I was interested to note that in a region which relies quite a lot on tourism in summer, they'd stuck a notice in the doorway saying that, in future, their currency exchange facility was only available to customers of CA!! If that's an example of an improvement, I'll eat my chapeau. The notice was also ONLY written in French (I know some people may consider that as it's France, that's entirely as it should be, but surely it's fairly obvious that if you want to change money there's a possibility that you're a visitor from another country)

BTW, to any of those kind enough to advise/reply to my last post about CA Britline and credit cards, yes, they did post our new card to our home address in the UK and yes, it did arrive there while we were in France!!

Jane

[Teamedup]

 I always used the Banque de France to change money and get travellors cheques prior to the euro. Since then the main post offices provide this service and usually charge less than the banks and I have found to give a better exchange rate too.

The BNP used to send our chq books out. They would hold them in branch for a short while and then send them, it always cost more than 3,61 euros. Our current bank seems to hold onto them until we call in, although I suspect that they would charge if they sent them, I have yet to find out how much.