banjopotato
Registered User
- Messages
- 40
My wife and I recently moved our current and savings accounts from AIB to Bunq. We were attracted by the better interest rates on the savings and the cheaper fees for our use case relative to what AIB was charging us.
We were quite pleased overall with the bank. Their front-line customer service was Artificial Intelligence, which seemed weird at first but the AI was really a lot better for most things than most of the frontline telephone staff I've dealt with at AIB or BofI. It knows its stuff and doesn't have any difficulty understanding questions, etc.
That was all fine until I got notification from the app of 2 transactions for over €400 that I immediately knew were fraudulent. They had been made in the US, online on Amtrak.com (which explained why I was not asked to approve them in the app). Within minutes, I had reported the unauthorised charges to the bank, asked for a chargeback, and blocked the debit card used. I also in the ensuing days reported the fraud at the local Garda station.
Under Article 73 of PSD2, banks are to refund unauthorised transactions to the customer immediately upon having been notified of them and in no case later than 1 business day. The fraud happened on a Sunday. Monday there was no refund of the money made. Nor on Tuesday. On the Wednesday, I made a formal complaint to Bunq pointing this out.
Since then, I've been in touch not only with the AI support but also with human support through Bunq's SOS Hotline and the human support chat. It has been a surreal experience to say the least. The humans are mostly woefully misinformed and have told me a few falsehoods like: "PSD2 only applies to direct debits" and "the one-day delay only applies from the time the MasterCard investigates and makes the determination that the charges were unauthorised." Both claims are nonsense.
Meanwhile, the AI support immediately recognised that the bank was in breach of its regulatory obligations and was deeply apologetic! It's a sad commentary that not only is the AI better informed, but it's also more empathetic than the human staff. The problem is: the AI can't actually do anything and there's no evidence that the human staff listen to it even when it's doing the AI equivalent of raising the alarm.
It's now been 10 days since the unauthorised transactions and I'm no closer to getting a resolution. The staff keep updating with messages with "good news" about how MasterCard is undertaking their investigation and I could have my money back as soon as in 45 days (!). Meanwhile the AI is beside itself with contrition, telling me how unacceptable it is that the bank is not meeting its regulatory obligations and sympathising with me about how frustrating the whole experience must be.
We were quite pleased overall with the bank. Their front-line customer service was Artificial Intelligence, which seemed weird at first but the AI was really a lot better for most things than most of the frontline telephone staff I've dealt with at AIB or BofI. It knows its stuff and doesn't have any difficulty understanding questions, etc.
That was all fine until I got notification from the app of 2 transactions for over €400 that I immediately knew were fraudulent. They had been made in the US, online on Amtrak.com (which explained why I was not asked to approve them in the app). Within minutes, I had reported the unauthorised charges to the bank, asked for a chargeback, and blocked the debit card used. I also in the ensuing days reported the fraud at the local Garda station.
Under Article 73 of PSD2, banks are to refund unauthorised transactions to the customer immediately upon having been notified of them and in no case later than 1 business day. The fraud happened on a Sunday. Monday there was no refund of the money made. Nor on Tuesday. On the Wednesday, I made a formal complaint to Bunq pointing this out.
Since then, I've been in touch not only with the AI support but also with human support through Bunq's SOS Hotline and the human support chat. It has been a surreal experience to say the least. The humans are mostly woefully misinformed and have told me a few falsehoods like: "PSD2 only applies to direct debits" and "the one-day delay only applies from the time the MasterCard investigates and makes the determination that the charges were unauthorised." Both claims are nonsense.
Meanwhile, the AI support immediately recognised that the bank was in breach of its regulatory obligations and was deeply apologetic! It's a sad commentary that not only is the AI better informed, but it's also more empathetic than the human staff. The problem is: the AI can't actually do anything and there's no evidence that the human staff listen to it even when it's doing the AI equivalent of raising the alarm.
It's now been 10 days since the unauthorised transactions and I'm no closer to getting a resolution. The staff keep updating with messages with "good news" about how MasterCard is undertaking their investigation and I could have my money back as soon as in 45 days (!). Meanwhile the AI is beside itself with contrition, telling me how unacceptable it is that the bank is not meeting its regulatory obligations and sympathising with me about how frustrating the whole experience must be.
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