Our own personal experience is that bank charges have gone up at a disproportionate rate 300%, and that some Banks are using every wriggle room they can to up those charges.
They also seem to be working on their upselling with offers to reduce bank charges if only we take their insurance products. Now it’s the winter some branches on the playa are only open a couple of days and for less hours.
One of our readers, who had her bank charges trebled, made an appointment (going online) to discuss it and had to go to the branch in Vera.
The assistant/manager asked her in an unfriendly manner who the appointment was with (all in Spanish), but of course the online appointment system doesn’t tell you who. She eventually looked up the appointment and it was with her!
They both went through the account and it was agreed that the bank was wrong and that the excess 40 euros would be returned to her account in a week.
A week later and no refund so our reader sent an email asking why. Some days later the answer was that one of her payments wasn’t to a Electricity Company on their approved list but if she took out her house insurance with them that all would be well.
So our reader emailed back asking for the list of approved Electricity companies. The reply days later was that it was being complied by head office ..! Our reader emailed back asking how the branch could decide that the Energy supplier wasn’t on the approved list if there wasn’t one .. still awaiting a reply.
The next steps will be to write to the bank making an official complaint. If you do not agree with the decision or receive no reply as a consumer within one month - 15 working days in the case of payment services, then its a written complaint to Banco de España.
Our reader is now moving her account to Wise with a Fee-Free transfer for up to 500 Euros on their first transfer though my “recommend a friend” link.
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