Living in Mexico - Archives: April 2006
Thursday, April 13, 2006
I should have listened to my friends… when I told them a few years ago that I wanted to open a bank account, they all told me to avoid Banamex like plague. I didn’t care, silly me, and here is some of the outrageous situations that resulted from my blind stupidity:
- In November 2005, Banamex sent me a letter claiming that they do not have any indication of my nationality and require me to fill a form proving that I’m not a US citizen, thus liable to US tax. Tiny detail, a foreigner can’t open an account in Mexico without leaving to the bank both a copy of his passport and FM3.
- Since I was traveling late last year, I missed the deadline to return this form. In early January, to my great surprise, everything stops working: ATM card, Internet banking, telephone banking. Banamex automatically cancelled my account because of my failure to respond on time. How sweet of them!
- I rush to the nearest branch from my office with the signed form, copies of my passport and all the paperwork Mexican bureaucrats love to impose on innocent foreigners. A customer service executive receives all the documents and assures me that within 3 days I’ll have full access to my account. I breathe a sigh of relief.
- Three weeks later, I still have no access whatsoever to my money! Naturally, the call center agents of Banamex always repeat the only message they have been trained to say “we have no idea, please go to a branch”. Utter waste of space! This time I go see the branch manager and express in vivid sentences what I think of their service. He is courteous and kindly re-enable my account, except for… my ATM card and savings account which have both been permanently deleted (I let you imagine my face when I was told this)!
- It appears that the brilliant IT staff of Banamex did not consider that a cancellation order would cause the ATM cards and savings accounts to be permanently disabled too. I let you guess the recommendation of the call center reps… “go to your branch”. How original and helpful.
- One hour of hellish traffic later, I arrive at my branch. Thirty minutes of waiting for a customer executive, I finally sit in front of a lady who will supposedly get me out of that nightmare. A request for a new ATM card gets placed – only 10 days waiting for a home delivery, but thankfully the customary charge for a new card is waived! Another 30 minutes is spent filling the indispensable paperwork to enable my savings account. Since I’m already there, I apply for a credit card – another 20 minutes of form-filling exercise.
- April 1st (I did not invent the date), my savings account disappear from the listing of my Banamex accounts on their Internet banking site! I rush to my branch (I spare you the description of the bumper to bumper traffic) and after the unavoidable 20 minute-wait, I sit in front of another executive… who is so lost that he has to call the branch manager to get anything worthwhile from his PC! I’m gob-smacked to learn that my savings have been lost into the Banamex mainframe-space – again! There is no other solution than to come back to the branch with a copy of my passport, a copy of my FM2, two proofs of address and my original contract so that a new savings account can be created and my money deposited into it. At that point I’m ready to faint, but it’s not all…
- There is no trace whatsoever of my credit card application! The lovely lady who took care of me the last time apparently did not bother to submit the forms I filled. Perhaps she dropped some nail varnish on them and had to dump them into the dustbin? Could you guess what’s next? Of course, I need to come back to the branch, with a copy of… (sigh).
- But the final nail in the coffin was when in utter disgust I decided to make good use of that humongous waste of time to get some cash out of the bank… and got told that there was NO CASH left at the cashier! The armored vehicle carrying the bags of cash seemingly never got to the bank because of the pre-Easter traffic or whatever other silly reason.
- To be fair and bow in front of the legendary Mexican sense of improvisation, the branch manager asked the customer executive to go to the strong-room and fetch some cash directly at the source – so in the end I managed to leave with enough money to survive the long Easter weekend on more than a loaf of bread and the grass in my garden (a highly recommended diet to shed those extra pounds).
The morale of the story is that I will close my account at Banamex and open one at Santander, which happens to have branches that are almost always deserted and hopefully a marginally better customer service than Banamex. So if you think of opening a bank account in Mexico, do yourself a huge favour and avoid Banamex!
Posted by Serge @ 09:17 PM MEX [Link] [Karma: 0 (+/-)] [No Comments]
