Poor service for a foreign bank

Dear Mr Tan

 

I have a housing loan with Bank X for over 10 years now. They have been sending me a monthly statement showing how much I have paid for the month and how much of the loan is still outstanding since we started banking with them in 2001.

 

From  Jan 2012 I have stopped receiving this monthly statement. I called up the bank and the call centre staff gave me many "possible" reasons why I have not been receiving the statement. But none of them seemed to be convincing.

 

It was only when I scrutinised the Dec 2011 statement that I realised in small print in that at the end of the statement was a statement saying from 2012 hard copy statement will not be sent any more supposedly to save the environment but I suspect it got more to do with saving money than the environment.

 

I called up the bank and told them I would prefer to receive the hard copy of the statement so that I can keep track of my payment and the amout still outstanding.

 

The bank said they do not entertain such request and advised me to use their internet banking to check and view the statemen online. Knowing internet banking in Singapore is not one of the easiest thing to manoeuvre I told them I still prefer the hard copy of the statement.They said "No!"

 

I have 2 questions. Firstly why is it that the staff at the call centre was not aware that Bank X is doing away with hard copy of housing loan repayment statement but instead gave me lots of "possible" reasons why I have stopped receiving the monthly repayment statement. And two, are banks allowed to swich to electronic statement without getting explicit consent from its customers. And even when customers choose to opt in or out of the e-statement the bank still has the final say? What about customers who do not wish to or have no access to internet?

 

I always thought that foreign banks offer better service than local ones but it seems that in Singapore nowadays companies and organisations are trying hard to outdo each other in seeing who can offer poorer customer service.

 

Just want to share this with you.

From a customer of Bank X