J'en ai assez!

I hate my bank. It's horrible. Let me tell you about it...

I went to the BNP when I first arrived in France and started working on all of the paperwork. I officially opened my account on Sept 4. The only thing missing was 2 documents which I didn't have at the time ( an attestation d'herbergement and an EDF facture - aka something saying where I lived and a bill from there). About 2 weeks later (admittedly, a bit late), I took the final 2 documents to the lady who is in charge of my account. She tells me that they have everything that they need and that I only needed to wait 2 weeks to process. I thought, 2 weeks sounds like a long time, but seeing as I didn't have any money in the account at the time, no big deal.

2 weeks later I returned to the bank. I took the slip of paper which they sent me in the mail (so that I could pick up my bank card) and went to the desk. They tell me that I can't have it because my acct is still "validating." Alright.

So I waited another 2 weeks. On Oct 9, I return to the bank with the slip. They tell me that the account is still validating and that I should come back in another week. At this point, we've been paid, so I really needed to start using Euros instead of the US Dollars that I've been using. So I ask if I can simply withdraw some money. The lady looks at me very seriously and says... "Non." Great.

So I waited another week or so and returned to the bank. The lady again says: No, you can't get your card. No, you can't withdraw money. Now, at this point, I'm getting mad. So I tell her that if I can't get my money, I'm taking all of it and closing the account. Somehow, that worked. She goes to find someone in charge and they allow me to take out 1000 Euros. Sheesh. They then say that they're not sure what the problem is, but that I should wait and that they'll call me. Right.

Ok, so this brings me to last week. (No, they did not call.) I go back to the bank with my passport (so that I can at least withdraw some money). Again, I am told that no, I cannot take my card and that no, I cannot withdraw money. Again, I tell them that I will close the acct if they don't give me my money and explain that it's my money, not theirs, and that I really should be allowed to spend my own money that I've worked for. The lady then looks up my acct and tells me that it's been put on hold. Awesome.

Now, I have to take back all of my original forms and actually re-create my bank account. Which is awesome since I don't have all of the original forms - they do. Sigh.

I hate them. Take my advice, try the LCL instead.