German Banking System

    I have to manually transfer money into my paypal account, go to the bank with some details, send the money (which takes 3-4 days) then buy my goods.

    The bank when you call them don't appear to speak english, which I can't understand because everyone including the rubbish collecters do.

    The bank card I have has NO details needed to buy online, no security code, issue, start date or even end date.

    When you save your language details at a card machine it fails to remember it on the next one, even though it says the change is global.

    You cant print out a balance from most machines, you have to find a special one.

    It costs you money to take some out of a bank if it's not a part of the group, so you have to travel to a specific one sometimes a long way away unless your happy losing 5 euros.

    It's epic fail - maybe the bank I have just sucks but apparently it's normal.

    Apart from all this, I'm loving it here

    Get yourself a new bank account =)

    I'm a happy HSBC client however I had a problem with them this week. I withdrew some money but the machine only gave me half of what I asked and still debited the full value. They are doing some investigations now and said they will return the money in 5 business days... still waiting.

    The funny thing is that I always check how much money the machines give out and since there were some strange people at the agency this time I decided just to skip it, for the first time ever in my life. Murphy's law at its best

    Chris you face these problems because your german bank card does not work as a credit card (visa or master). It's a so called debit card. The german system is more based on safety then on convienence to understand this. Someone who steals your bank card can't go online and plunder the whole account where you have your savings and salary. He can only get a limited amount of money at ATM's if he knows your PIN code.

    You will need a seperate visa or master card for your online buisnesses.

    Yeah well, I don't want a credit card to buy things online, thats madness! very old school, we used to restrict certain things to credit card only in the UK. Even chip-n pin isnt really working here yet so security wise if somebody steals your card they can go on a spending spree

    Credit cards are the biggest problem in the finacial world, they no doubt fuck people over, debit cards in the UK are a safe way to do everything, and you can still setup direct debits for everything from phone bills to MMO subscriptions.

    Give Germany a few years and they will catch up ;p The only real benifit to a credit card is that your purchases are protected, we had the german system a decade ago, but things changed for the better.

    My sister went to Germany for Oktoberfest and her car broke down there (not related to the beer). So our insurance managed to contact a garage that would fix the car, and a company to lend my sister a car for her travel back home. Two weeks later, my mom and I take the plane to grab the fixed car and bring it back in a day.

    Well yeah, the German banking system is bullcrap.

    There, the garage told us they couldn't use our cards (mastercards, visas, french CB, etc.) so we should go to the nearby bank and get some money out. At the banks (2 in the area), the machines do say "mastercard accepted" so we figure it's alright. But no, none of our cards would get a damn bill out of it (and we tried all kinds of different amounts). Of course, the clerks at the bank don't speak A SINGLE WORD OF ENGLISH. Come on! French people are too chauvinists to learn other languages, but most of them still know the very basics. They know what "Money", "Card" or "Machine" are, but apparently these people didn't, or just didn't give a fuck about us.

    So lunchtime hits, and we still don't have any money and no way to get some. And of course, our own bank will soon be closed for lunchbreak and we really need to hit the road if we want not to have to stop in an hotel somewhere (which we couldn't pay anyway, right?) So we call our bank to know if they can transfer money directly from our account to the garage's, and they say they just need us to fax the banking info and a letter signed by my mother saying she indeed wants it done. Bad thing is, they're officially closed, and should only open in 2 hours. The last employee answered the phone on her way out.

    We manage to get her to wait for our fax to come in so she can transfer the money fast. So, we go back to the garage and manage to get them to understand (they were annoyed but friendly and at least made efforts to get it) that we need to send the fax, and figure it'll take a few minutes at least to reach, and since it's lunchbreak, our bank's answering machine forwards us to another bank that stays open at noon but can't know if the transfer has been done or not. So we go grab some lunch with the few euros we still have.

    After an hour we go back to the garage and they confirm that they received the money. Cool, we get the car, hit the road, and get home at 4:30a.m. the next day after leaving home at about 3am the day before.

    Well, it's been about a month and half and my mom's account still hasn't been debited the money, so I guess there was some more troubles afterwards between banks. We notified our own bank, but that's all we can do. Maybe next time I go to Germany, I'll see Wanted posters with my mom on it. Let's just say this sucks balls. And I wasn't even the one having fun at Oktoberfest...

    I mean, come on, I was able to get money with the same card back in China, but not in the next country which is part of the EU?

    I think, Germans need to see how free and painless banking is in the UK. I've spoken to some people here and after explaining how easy it is to get money from ANY bank in the UK (and buy online) they agree.

    It's like in England, it really doesnt matter what bank you decide to use, the system work flawlessly everywhere.

    I'm with Deutsche Bank who have quite a number of other banks in the group that I can withdraw money from without being charged. yet the simple fact is banks here need to come together in the very interests of the people. The system is not hard to understand, but compared to the UK it's overly complicated without any real advantages. It's not more secure; it's simply old fashioned.

    On the other hand, The German economy is doing pretty well by the sounds of it (compared to the UK or USA), so ... who am I to judge the finacial methods of business ;p

    Hey I got a message for you:

    Quote

    Dear Chris,please see me in my office in the Deutsche Bank tower tomorrow. I am eager to hear your plans on how to improve our cash withdrawal service and fraud protection system.

    Yours sincerely

    - Josef Ackerman

    I believe it was even mentioned in the links about german quirks that i sent you that the german bank system is a pain in the ass

    It still is efficient tho. For the banks to make money... They make shitloads on silly fees which they spent on nice and big ass branches. So at least when you go to a bank there are people you can talk to and its a comfy environment. Here in sweden the banks branches are like the most sterile and boring places. Feels like visiting the work agency begging for welfare money. You even have to take a number and wait...

    And kick every bank worker who doesn't speak english in the butt from me. They are full of shit. Of course they speak english. You need very good school grades to get a job at a bank. I guess they are just super shy about speaking another language. Probably feel humiliation when they speak with a thick german accent to a native english speaker

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