Reader warns: “Don’t put your money in one bank, rather put it (or part of it) under your mattress”

A new reader letter from a NUUS reader from our region who became a victim of scammers. Read more about this via this link. Read his new writing, A Warning, below.

We aim for 99% satisfied customers…

Then I was just unlucky…

I could mention several subtitles here, but I will only give 2:

Don’t put your money in one bank, rather put it (or part of it) under your mattress.

If your bank says to you, we are going to help solve your problem, know that what they actually mean is: we are going to ensure that your customer stays with us, so that we (the bank) can benefit from it.

I must start this article with a reference to an article that appeared a few weeks ago in NUUS and that is about an internet fraud case involving sales on 2dehands.be and a courier company. In this article I already gave eight interesting tips. I’ll repeat these tips here at the bottom of this article and even add a few more.

Secondly, I would also like to start this article with a word of thanks to the regional (southern edge of East Flanders) manager CG (son of my neighbor) and the bank manager BD of my local bank. I realize all too well that a regional manager, probably in the top 100 of my major Belgian bank and responsible for more than 19,800 satisfied customers, and a local bank director, probably in the top 500 of the same bank and with more than 1,980 satisfied customers… have invested more than enough time in my case. So I certainly don’t want to say anything bad about them in this article. And I also don’t want to shoot at their employees because I know all too well that the workload on these people is far too high. If there is a waiting period of 14 days to book a 15-minute appointment via their website, then this says enough. And if even their police department asks for 20 working days to respond to a simple complaint… then I wonder what their CEO means by the verb “striving”. He or she can come and explain this to me personally… (my postal address, e-mail address and telephone number are known to the editors)

But I still feel it is my duty to share my story with you. I started my article with a reference to an internet fraud case that happened to me. Due to my own stupid mistake I had lost a few hundred euros, shame on me but shit happens… and I had learned a lot from it.

But how my bank went about it really defies all imagination: errors, negligence, carelessness, inadequate IT systems, unsafe processes and procedures (or at least not followed correctly by their staff), lack of reactivity, etc. …
Real-life examples at the bottom of this article.

No, I am really not a complainer, I am 63 years young and I am also a very calm person who rarely or never panics and never makes me angry. I have been responsible for everything regarding network, telecom and internet security for decades in one of the largest industrial companies in Belgium, so I am used to quite a bit.

I don’t want to bore you with all the details of my case in this article, maybe I will do this in a next article, but I do want to say one thing: the bungling (sorry, there is no better word for this) of my bank, I have not had access to my own accounts/money for more than 3 weeks, I do not know how much is left in my account, my credit card has been blocked, I cannot withdraw 5 euros from a cash point, I cannot buy anything in the supermarket, I can’t get gas, and so on.

It’s a good thing/coincidence that I’m also a small customer at another major Belgian bank, otherwise I would probably weigh 5 kilograms less now and I would have to ride my bike to work.

I also do not want to make a plea here to exchange the bank that strives for 99% satisfied customers for another major Belgian bank, because perhaps it is the same everywhere. But anyway I will give it a try… after being a loyal customer of the above-mentioned bank for more than 40 years.

The most important tips at a glance:

1. Never make your mobile number visible on 2dehands.be
2. Do all communication via the 2dehands.be chat, never use WhatsApp, for example, to communicate with a buyer/seller.
3. Don’t be tempted to make a €0 purchase with your bank card to identify yourself, so to speak. Never give out your card or account number.
4. If you see suspicious payments appearing on your bank account, immediately set all your bank account limits to €0 (this is the fastest method to stop the disaster)
5. Then call Cardstop and immediately ask them to block other payment apps (e.g. Payconic) that are linked to your bank card.
6. Never let the handling of the sale (transport and payment) be done by a parcel service that was arranged by the (rogue) buyer.
7. Never provide your full address, the place name (municipality/city) is sufficient.
8. Do not do the physical transaction at your home or at the home of the other party: meet in a parking lot of a shopping center or station nearby.
9. If you have a freestanding mailbox, always lock the door.
10. Don’t put your money in one bank, rather put it (or part of it) under your mattress
11. If your bank says to you, we are going to help solve your problem, know that what they actually mean is: we are going to ensure that your customer stays with us, so that we (the bank) can benefit from it.