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My beef with my bank (my lawyer said I can’t say which bank)

Around a month ago I was at the airport early morning, I had just finished checking in and headed towards the money exchange to get some currency. I gave the exchange employee my Knet card but got an error saying my card was declined. I tried it again but got the same error. I knew I had money on the card since I had double checked the night before. In any case I decided to log in with my banks app and double check but I got an error logging in as well. I then told the money exchange clerk I would be back and headed to one of the ATM machines at the airport to withdraw money but also got an error. So I called the banks call center number and spoke to an employee who proceeded to tell me their system was going under maintenance and I wouldn’t be able withdraw any money or use any of my cards for the next two hours.

I was furious.

Here I was at the airport about to travel and I didn’t have any cash on me and I wouldn’t be able to get any cash either and not because I didn’t have any money but because my bank wouldn’t give me access to it. When I asked the employee why they didn’t inform me and their other customers about this so that we would be prepared (I could have converted currency the night before and withdrawn money), his response was we did… on Instagram and Twitter. And this is where the problem lies. I hung up with the call center employee and headed to the lounge where I proceeded to tweet my frustration as well as send their customer care an email. I didn’t get any response from them until 30 days later when I had to tweet and remind them that it had been 30 days without a response.

Now this is where I would be interested to hear from you guys since maybe I’m over reacting here or maybe it’s me being an asshole but wouldn’t you agree it would be best if the bank SMS’ed their clients important information like when you won’t be able to access your money or any of your cards for two hours instead of posting that kind of important information on twitter or instagram?

First of all why the hell would I want to follow my bank on twitter or instagram? I follow only 15 friends on twitter and I follow around 100 friends on Instagram. The image above is a result of me following my banks twitter account (I had to so I could send them a direct message). They tweet so much and so often they ended up taking over my twitter feed. Why would I want to flood my twitter feed with their tweets on a daily basis?

Secondly, my bank have my phone number and I receive a ton of useless advertisements from them all the time. Why is it ok to SMS me useless adverts but not ok to SMS me important information like when I will not be able to use my ATM or credit cards because their system will be down?

So this is my suggestion to my bank (you know who you are):

1- SMS or Email your customers when there will be a major disruption in the service

2- Be clear about what the disruption will be. “System will be undergoing maintenance” could mean anything from I won’t be able to log in to your website to your call center employees won’t be able to order their daily fix of Caesars pizza. It’s too generic, instead tell your customers clearly that on a certain date at a certain time they will not be able to use their ATM cards.

3- Respond to emails. 30 days with no response means you’re ignoring me. I sent an email to Zain the other day and got a response in 15 minutes so if they can do it so can you.

That’s my 2 cents. And yes this post was censored by Fajer.

116 replies on “My beef with my bank (my lawyer said I can’t say which bank)”

that’s so they can send the message about their incompetence to a system no one will notice and so that they can cover up their ass when some one complain , no were does it say that I should follow them in any media, they have no right to impose on me or you or any one else any extras that is not included in the account opening agreement. any were else in the world they would be in trouble for that, here they can pass it on and since we have no option but to deal with local bank we have no option but to thank them for the lack of service

I had the exact problem though I needed to withdraw money from an ATM to pay a person to pay some people I owed.

To my surprise I got the same error you described, probably around the same time you had yours it was about a month ago.

I called and was told the same BS they told you. I did not believe the reason was maintenance for a second, obviously they had a major issue they didn’t want to declare.

I don’t even have a twitter account nor I open instagram or want to follow my bank (I am fairly certain which bank your talking about).

I always get SMS for my transactions and the useless adverts you posted. I totally agree that this is an extremely unacceptable situation. What if you were in a real emergency that needed cash ASAP.

That level of unreliability is totally surprising and shocking to me giving the fact that I never had such issue before.

Same bank cancelled my credit cards after charging me 100KD renewal fees; then blamed it on Central Bank changing rules – never got back the 100KD.

same bank left stranded with no money in paris after informing them that i was travelling, 3 days later they cancel my card and my visa saying that there was some suspicious activity!!!! yes it was me-in paris-shopping!!!!

I feel your pain, happened to me …

You are out paying and ….. wtf ….

Call the bank on the number on the back of the card …. ring ring, ring ring, ring ring ..

Bloody pick up the phone …

They are always this bad. Go a head and enter their branches you will hate your life. You pay for a SMS service to not to be informed of even the basic stuff like “Your Salary has been deposited”.

They are bad but they can’t seem to see it.

I had a similar issue back in April..
i was at H&M opposite Fanar… at the teller when i wanted to pay by card it just kept declining… i went to the ATM it said my card is blocked.. and it’s a debit card… why would they just block it??

i called up the customer service.. the guy didnt really know what was happening.. after around 3-4 minutes he told me that they blocked mine and a lot of other customers card due to a security threat. :/

i did have a missed call from them 2 days before the incident.. but they never called back..

so finally… they said they will be issuing me a new card with new pin code n stuff.. n I’m to collect it on a sunday… so i had to survive the whole weekend without any cash..

i told them that i dont want to collect the card in the branch where i opened the account coz they shut down at 3 & i cant skip work.. they acknowledged… but then when i did go to the bank of my choice… they didnt have my card!!! they took my number & said they will call the next day… which they did thankfully..

apparently, eventhough they acknowledged my request, they still held the card at the branch where i had opened the account.. so the nice lady from my preferred branch asked them to send the card to her branch and called me to collect the card…

eventhough everything ended well.. i was furious that they hadn’t informed me in advance.. the customer service is crazy here… half the people in the call centers arnt trained well… they dont know half the stuff…

Here’s a quick solution: Change your bank, or, have more than one bank account. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Banks are not as loyal to you as your are to them.

So true ! I have kept 3 accounts in different banks, 1 bank only for salary , one for just saving and one where i use only Credit Card to get points 😉

That is kind of weird coming from THIS bank. The last time they had to update their system they actually did send texts and it was all over instagram and twitter. Plus, I never get any ads from them.

I have had a problem with them before, however. Whenever my father had to withdraw some cash, I would get a text. It started to get annoying so I called them to take care of the problem but they told me that both of us, my father and I, had to come down there to change the information. Seems okay, but what if the person I’m getting the texts for isn’t my father? How would this work?! I mean I’m not gonna call the guy and tell him to come down with me, and they shouldn’t expect that either.

Let’s hope that things go back to the way they used to be back when grandpa was the general manager of the bank 😩.

If this was a planned service maintenance (Which I highly doubt) then you’re absolutely right to be vocal about sending an sms. But if this happened as a sudden disruption, I’m sure many people suffered the same thing and this is like asking them to send an sms before an earthquake hits, I’m assuming they talked about in twitter and instagram to apologize for the disruption.

I think it’s a bit over reacting from your part in this case, but I had major problems with Bank earlier when they had the system upgrade, my money was being transferred in and out daily without my prior knowledge, I got very vocal about it though they warned about system disruptions, they needed though to call every person who had money flown out of their account to personally assure them everything is being taken care of, they never did that, and I had to go multiple times and wait in line in the bank to fix their problems !!

If some banks can afford to send you your New credit card through Aramex instead of you having to pick it up I think an SMS saying you will not be able to acccess YOUR MONEY is not too much to ask for. especially when you are about to travel. You didnt over react. You were respectful enough to close the call and vent other ways.

I don’t use Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

There is no reason for me to use them till now and I don’t see any reason I want to use them anyway.

Bank has the mobile/cellular numbers of its customers and its their responsibility to make sure their customers know.

Oh by the way, when abroad and you call the number designated for customers out of the country NO ONE FREAKING ANSWERS.

That’s why you use Google Voice/Skype to call them, they are really helpful, I had no issues with them whatsoever over the years. Hell, they never take as much as that Islamic ripoff bank that everyone suddenly loves when it comes to international transactions.

Also, some of these companies disseminate information on Instagram and Twitter ONLY IN ARABIC! Wataniya was letting S4 and Note 3 owners use 4G through a 3rd party app you had to download, and they only told people about it in Arabic on their Instagram feed. How does that make sense? What about your customers who are English only speaking? Or Tagalog? Or Hindi? Obviously an account can’t be in 50 different languages, but a bilingual e-mail shot or SMS completely makes sense, particularly for people who are PAYING for 4G service but couldn’t access it through their own network neglect.

English and Arabic is enough imo. If you can’t speak either one of those I’m not sure how you navigate daily life in Kuwait in the first place…

Kuwait is a lot bigger than you seem to know. there are ENTIRE areas of Kuwait that operate on neither of those two languages

trust me when i say DO NOT switch to GULF Bank, much worse, I’ve suffered over 2,000 KD within the past 2 months over the stupidest situation ever. and they never bothered to make things right. they made things much worse. #justsayin

I think your approach was appropriate given the situation.

The thing that’s most appalling about this is that they have a guaranteed delivery method (SMS) yet they chose to distribute such information on social media.

#fail

best bank is cbk… i travel a lot… and never ever had any problems… plus i have a burgan account for back up… but never really needed to use it.

I have had a problem year ago when some amount was twice debited from my Gulf Bank account and believe me it took me over a year to get the refund. An employee at GBK Riqqa branch took all the papers from me and asked me to check after 3 weeks. After 3 weeks, I was told that that good man did not even entered my complaint in Bank’s system. They made me go here and there for a year before a lady employee heard my complaint and processed the application.

God Good – I was debating weather to move to Boubyan bank for their new amazing offer for KU faculty and say adios to N-K but thought that N-K might be the most professional and with a good international reputation, I think my decision is easy now.

any thoughts of Boubyan guys.

Happy holidays season and merry christmas ppl

Boubyan is a good choice. As well as Warba. They’re young and want to serve. With Boubyan you can withdraw cash from your atm without even using your atm card. Yes. It’s true. Came in handy a couple of times.

Oh and both banks dont charge fees on credit cards.

Ahli changed alot and are now better, i reopened my account after 5 years and i dont regret it. Till now at least.

Hope i was helpful.

NBK is the majority shareholder in Boubyan Bank, if that matters. Personally, I’ve never had any problems with KFH.

I guess it has become a fact that KFH is the absolute best bank in Kuwait. All other banks are incompetent, focused on handful of their clients, and will rob your earnings in anyway they find possible (and most of the times without your knowledge). I know one for a fact (run by Teddy Bear… or used to be a moment ago) made its profits by sending parents to prison and having their relatives pay off loan collectors!

Let them “slap fake terms”… at least when you take a loan from them you know for sure what is your interest rate (which is fixed) and they will never demand more money from you than what they have lent to you. I would trust them with car loan, home loan, credit cards and any other financial transaction.

While other “non-islamic banks” they give you variable interest rates, they make you sign documents without knowning how much you really owe them… and even if they calculate it for you on the day of signing the paperwork… they will not put that figure down as that figure will change over time.

In civilized countries… it is the bank responsibility to let you know how interest rate fluctuate and how paying the loan back and failing to pay it back works.

all that aside.. and the fact that the rotten camel bank keep out salaries with them for additional days to gain interest on our money is another story.

Have you tried getting a credit card or a prepaid card from there? It’s a nightmare from getting your name wrong (Twice !!) and then the card never gets delivered even after several reminders and at the end comes the genius customer service asking you to pick it up from their third party courier company which btw is not on the map in any known maps app, had to ask three people on the road to get there….

THE NATIONAL *COUGH* OF KUWAIT.

It takes exactly 7 seconds to find out what bank it is from your twitter account.

It’s pretty stupid not to notify customers *directly* that their card won’t be accessable for 2 hours.

“We tweeted and instagram’d about it” is not an answer.. to what? 40,000 people? from 240,000 customers? It’s like a security agency saying during your vacation your house went on fire so we put a big billboard somewhere to alert you.

funny enough, i had a carbon copy of your problem and the bank was NBK. i have had more terrible experiences with them over the past couple of years. last, why is your lawyer censoring your post! say the name of the bank, its your right and the situation is fully factual and not an opinion!

before i forget, this is a social media marketing team failure by the bank. obviously the team are community managers sitting within the pr premises and not marketing or relevant channels. also obvious from the spamming that they dont have a content strategy or mission and customer care on social networks defies the logic of what social channels are used for in the relevant context……..especially for banks! this is the problem with social media for corporations in kuwait, u gave a podium to broadcast their incompetency on marketing and communications.

Mark contacted the proper channels (call center & customer care) which unfortunately did not respond to him in a timely manner. when he contacted the bank through social media he was met with quick response; so it seems the social media department were on top of their game. right?

i think mark answered you. but just to add, so ur saying the call center and customer care are useless and the guy in the social media department is good? second, read what i wrote well, its a clear indication that they confused how u personally react on social media vs how corporations should!

last, i mentioned other factors that makes them bad at what they to on social space, all in all i stand by my argument, they are immature when it comes to social media management and more than certain that they are at their best poor community managers that think their job requirement is confined to posting all day long and get paid for it……….this is what social gimmick brands do!

1-your english is fluent.
2-i cant say that you r an asshole but i think that you might be over-reacting a bit and being a drama queen as usual 😉
3-you should thank God sometimes, for the money in your bank account.you have money and strength to withdraw money and chance to travel while some ppl are stuck in a shithole :/
4-and most important of all, you are able to live in kuwait.if i were you, i would thank God even more for that as well.
5-that happens.once you did not reply my email and once fajeer the lawyer did not reply my email as well.(i sent fajeer an email only once tho).so you know how it feels being ignored now.
6-calm down and stay blessed.
7.did you notice that i have left the forum for other ppls sake.i do let them enjoy their lives now.i didnt know that they really hate me.if i felt that before, i could leave earlier 🙂

Is Goker one of these guys who want us to thank god for living in Kuwait and accept any shi$#T that comes. I guess he would not be as happy if things like this happen to him and for sure he would raise hell for he is different

Buddy I just want you to know that shit happens everywhere.For example in Mark’s case, if you are travelling in the early morning or any time of a day, you can just make your money ready from the night before.What is the point of leaving it to the last minute?
another thing is…i see ppl,(no not dead ppl :p) who write that -i was in amsterdam and i had 300000kd in my account- -i was in milano and i had 40oookd in my account- and they got stuck abroad.i do not think that i would ever see milano or amsterdam or could have that much money in my bank account, 🙂 but if i had, i could carry some cash in my wallet.with a credit card which will allow me withdraw cash from any atm in any country.most preferably visa 🙂
and who am i to dictate that ppl who live in kuwait should accept any shit.i just sad, be a bit wary and take precautions.do not let small things ruin your beautiful days while some ppl are living in ruins.(i am not talking about myself.so do not call me a drama queen).

so what? there are many ppl on this blog from many other countries.from india to usa.we do not say this guy is american or chinese or patagonian but we give out turkish guys 😀 what is wrong about being turkish? 🙂

Nothing wrong LOL the guy thought you were Kuwaiti and that’s why you were defending something that happened in Kuwait

😀 nobody believes that but i am 50% Kuwaiti in my heart 😉 i like your country and i defend it more than mine 😀

Well said GOKER,
If anyone is not happy in KWT, simply leave, no once is forcing to stay. We are here for our own bread n butter.

this same! left me stranded in Amsterdam few months ago. refused to give me any cash over seas, when there is over KD30,000 in the main account it is linked to.

when you call the customer care line from outside Kuwait they don’t answer the fucken phone at all. i called my friend in Kuwait, he had to call them and explain that im trying to call. then they call me and ask me not to ask Friends or Family to call regarding my bank issues it is not safe. few beers latter, i told him exactly what i thought of their customer care and everything ells that i also had on my mind at that time.

2 days latter, they transferred only 1,000 into one of my credit card and froze the rest of the money, this money was not linked to anything in kuwait like dept or loans, this is Hard earned money i saved up, i’m allowed to use it right? no no no! not according to them. they want to treat you like a child and have full control of you’re money at all time. this same bank you are talking about, did this to my entire staff,friends,family. everyone i know! they are well known for this.

i got back to Kuwait, closed all my accounts transferred the money, to my Burgan bank checking account, and now i can access it again. i suggest you go to Burgan bank and get an account there. they actually care about their customers. Kuwait Finance House is also a good bank.

That’s also because they do not have all your hard earned money piled up behind the ATM screens all over. They take your money to do business and it will surely take them time to get it back to you, you should have known.

that morning i had the exact same experience as you. good thing i wasn’t traveling alone and my buddy gave me some cash.

i expect an sms announcing this.
it doesn’t mean everybody’s sleeping on a saturday morning!!!

u r now over-reacting!

Been in Kuwait for 2 years now, and the bank system is horrendous. Luckily I still have my account from the states. Never had a problem. I told them once, and only once, that I am in Kuwait. They even waived international fees. Been a loyal customer for 6 years. I wish they can open some branches in the Middle East, although Bank of America won’t sound so American here.

i had the same exact problem but it was the system giving me an error that i cannot transfer money to my pre-paid visa card which i needed right there and then on a saturday, i called hala watani and one of the annoying customer care reps was not helping. when i asked for the supervisor he told me the only thing he can do to help me is for me to drive to their hala watani headquarters with my original civil ID so that he can transfer the money, WTF!

I had an AL-Shabab account and didn’t used to for an year because I travelled abroad for higher studies but when I came back I found out that they have freezed my account. I wasn’t furious at first as I thought maybe it’s one of their policies.
But here comes the problem, when I visited to the branch where I opened my account, they told me that they will have to open a new account for me as the old one is cancelled. Fair enough, it was still acceptable considering the benefit of getting a new card. So I got a call after 4 working days and they gave me a blue one instead of the standard looking shabab card as they ran out of SHABAB CARDS!
I literally had to convince the people at the cinema and other outlets from where I was allowed to get that this stupid looking blue coloured card in infact AL-SHABAB!

Sorry Mark, I should say that you’re being a bit of a drama queen on this..
Its a very frustrating issue. I hope that something could be done about it. I have few comments though:
1- running a bank with billions of dollars of assets is a bit more complicated than running a blog. Expect issues to arise.
2- sometimes safeguarding your money outweighs any inconveniences caused by such issues.
3- please sue them!!!

A bank has chiefs, executives, boards, committees, managers, audit, IT, etc. It employees people in the thousands to ensure it is run smoothly. Because it controls assets in the billions, it should ensure they are run better and easier than a blog.

I opened my Platinum account with Boubyan around 2 years ago, and they’re good. Excellent sense of customer service, they have gone out of their way to help me on several occassions. Seems to be embedded in their culture. The flexibility of banking with a smaller bank, and the security of it being an NBK sister bank. I would (and am) strongly recommend Boubyan.

Understandable, not an overreaction.

I think the frustration comes from it being such a simple procedure that the bank could have followed but they didn’t, i.e SMS.

Therefore if something so simple can be overlooked, it raises questions and concern if similar cases or even more complicated cases in the future are repeated.

Money is a very personal issue. The bank asks me to keep my money with them and promises to safeguard it for me and grant me access where and when I need it. When they fail to do so, yes, it becomes very frustrating.

No. You don’t always have the tight to access your money anytime and anywhere. Depends on the legal terms and conditions and type of your account.

I am talking about the account and money I choose to have access to. I am not talking about a fixed deposit or any other account with shady legal terms.

Hey, you don’t have to put this comment up (just in case it gets used against you). The screenshots from twitter include your banks name I think.

i wonder if you ever heard of the term “siphoning off”.you made a deal with the bank and trust them.deposit all your money in the bank.then some people come and steal all the money in the bank by legal ways.the bank declares bankruptcy and tataaa.you have nothing.not even a penny.that happened a lot of times in my country and ppl got almost nothing in return :s

In Kuwait banks dont file bankruptcy. There is a Financial Stability Law which supports solvent banks. Or another bank steps in and buys it out or they merge.

i dont know the laws in kuwait as well.i meant that it happened in my country-turkey- and all the money was gone.thousands of ppl went to the court, hundreths of ppl cried in front of the bank for dayy and some passed away bcs of heart attack.after many years of trials, they got only a small amount of their money back.it was really sad.

This happened to me last month.

I was at Centerpoint in Al Rai, spent good 2 hours shopping and the total came up to 104 bucks. i handed over my Debit card and it declines ! After multiple failed attempts, i handed over my wife’s debit card incidentally from the same bank and it declines as well. The guy at the counter was very polite enough, and asked us to wait aside for 5 minutes to give it another try. when i looked around i saw so many other folks in the same situation holding the same bank’s debit card !

I checked with my bank’s customer care and they said their systems were under maintenance and that he didn’t know by when it would be up 🙂

So after waiting besides the counter for twenty minutes later i left the place leaving all the items i picked cursing my bank. By then the place was crowded with lot of people.

Dear Bank, Thank you so much for the wonderful experience !

in that case, you can tell the guys to put all your stuff in a bag and attach your bill onto the bag and write your name on it as well.you pick it up next day.or a few hours later.almost all big stores do that if you ask them to do so 😉

I had the same problem with the same bank maybe 1 month ago. but it was evening.
I was buying some furniture and I couldn’t pay with my K-Net.
I was in bad situation after spending a lot of time choosing my stuff and standing in the queue for long time and then BOOOM you can’t pay because they are working on the system and you have to wait 2 hours!!
I didn’t receive any sms ar any notification from them. and the worst is they didn’t mention anything on their website!!
Why should I follow them on twitter or Instagram? what if i’m not a “social media” person?
تباً لهم !!

what kind of bank relies only on social media to update their customers on whatever?!

I too, would flip out if I were you.. how hard is it to sms your customers ??

i wanted to add something here.a friend of mine went to philippines two months ago.they went into a fancy restaurant and had their dinner with his wife.they asked for the bill and he wanted to pay it by his credit card.the guy took his credit card and went back to complete that payment.next day he wanted to withdraw some money and his credit card was blocked.he tried it several times but the card did not work so he was totally disappointed with the bank.thank god he had some cash with himself.he went back to turkey and called the bank.they told him that, at that exact night when they went to this restaurant, this restaurant charged an amount of money from his card and then tried to do it again and again so the bank blocked his card to protect its customer.now he is thankful to his bank eventhough he was cursong the bank at that moment.so they do some useful things to save you sometimes too.

My experience with this bank is that once I got a call from a salesman during a very busy time at work, and I just kept saying “ok” to him. Apparently I was saying ok to a credit card upgrade. A few days later my credit card stopped working and I realized too late what I have done. Anyways, it was a good thing this thing did not happen during a vacation or something.

Anyways, with Kuwaiti banks, always plan ahead, be cautious and pay attention when you get get a call from them. Follow the basic rule which applies to all Kuwaiti companies: the customer is always wrong.

Hopefully your bank and other banks read your blog and these comments and get the message: customer service keeps customers. Too many businesses in Kuwait under estimate the value of keeping customers. Too many customers do nothing about poor customer service. Good for you!

I just love how we aren’t allowed to complain about companies in kuwait if we don’t want to end up in court. I hate all banks in kuwait. They treat customers like they are doing us a favor instead of providing services. And the rules…must go to this branch or that branch. Ugh.

NBK obviously cause they did the same thing to me and my wife we both use NBK we were at the restaurant having dinner when I tried to pay and had the same issue you had and same response

I dont see how, or why your lawyer mentioned – not to mention the name of the Bank! – I mean, whats the point of this vent, if the bank is not held responsible for the service disruption? – If you have evidence that this Bank has given you this particular information (which by the way is recorded at the Bank’s Call center – for quality purposes apparently), I don’t see why you can not reveal the name. You’re good to go Mark – Just do it – Be true to at least an illusion of free speech!

I’m not sure I am aware – Having said that this case is clear – There has been numerous times where I have point blank moments with Viva, Centerpoint…etc. And I have had responses for the same from the brand officials. Your case is an open book! – The people have a right to know, and I assume someone like yourself – with your reach, have a responsibility towards your followers!

My Benihana case cost me KD2,750… Are you gonna reimburse me for that? Didn’t think so. I guess then I don’t owe anyone anything since it’s my ass on the line.

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