“In the last year, the bank had charged me more than 280 lei just from commissions. I knew some of them, but when I asked them about the difference, they invoked contrary provisions to my account statements.” How an Iasi resident resolved his conflict with the bank – Finance & Banking

“I saw that in the last year the bank had collected more than 280 lei from commissions alone. I knew some of them, but when I asked them about the difference, they invoked all kinds of provisions that my account statements contradicted. After I appealed to the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution in the banking field (CSALB), they returned my account administration fee of 65 lei, and the withdrawal fees will be zero for one year. I continued with the idea that this solution is better than nothing . I really didn’t expect it to work. I emailed the account statements for a year, CSALB sent them to the bank and it was solved, “says Sorin H. from Iași. Sorin is one of the 294 clients who managed to settle the conflict with the bank since the beginning of the year In 90 other negotiations, consumers and banks / non-financial institutions have not reached an agreement, and there are more than 100 negotiations in progress, CSALB said in a statement sent Wednesday.

• MI, Bucharest: At the proposal of the conciliator Valentin Cocean, the bank decided to completely cancel the consumer debt, in the case of a loan in euros with a history of restructuring that did not represent real long-term help. The 60,000 euros were eliminated for the consumer in a social case in which the creditor also invoked a difficult medical condition, remaining as the sole payer in relation to the bank. Furthermore, the monthly fee was about 2,500 lei, several hundred lei lower than the income. The previous record for negotiating a contract in euros within CSALB was 44,600 euros.

• M. Mihăiță, Târgu Frumos: “The fact that the bank paid off all my debt of more than 58,000 lei was the best news I could receive. My wife died last year and I kept this loan for which I paid a fee of 1,860 lei per month. It was a five-year loan that I was able to pay for only two years. I learned about CSALB from a friend who had seen news about other cases on the Internet and on television. At first I didn’t believe it, I was skeptical. So I thought it wouldn’t cost me anything to try. I was as happy as the conciliator Alina Radu when I called her to tell me the result. If I could, tomorrow I would go to the other side of the country to thank him. ”

Since the beginning of the year, consumers have sent CSALB more than 2,300 requests to negotiate with banks and NFIs, compared to 2,117 in the previous year. Most (1,775 requests) are related to banks and 531 to NFIs.

“As banks encouraged consumers to turn to CSALB in the summer of this year, we wanted to see what consumer impressions are, on some of the cases resolved. As we can see, the range of values ​​of the benefits obtained is very wide. In this regard, we remind consumers that there are no similar cases or identical solutions within CSALB. These differences show us that the most important thing is that the solution given satisfies the parties and solves the problem that arose in the course of the contract, regardless of whether it involves large sums or only questions of principle.

We are happy that consumer satisfaction is not conditioned by the benefits obtained in the negotiations or their value, but by the professionalism of the conciliators and the interest that banks give their clients in the conciliation. Credit institutions must understand that the similarity between a case in which a consumer obtains 65 lei and another in which the bank cancels a debt of 60 thousand euros is related to the dissatisfaction of the consumer who addressed CSALB. Both cases should be treated with equal care and, fortunately, this is successfully done by the conciliators with whom we collaborate. They give the same interest regardless of the value of the benefits that can be obtained, and their approach is a guarantee for consumers and banks of the fairness of the proposed solutions.
I can say that especially in the cases with lower values, the utility of CSALB is felt. There are differences why, normally, consumers would not go to court, since in court there would be too much cost, too much time and too much nerve consumed in relation to the desired result. Furthermore, if we have drawn a parallel with the court, both the notification of the CSALB and the actual conduct of the conciliatory proceedings are extremely simple and do not require legal knowledge, which is an important advantage compared to the development of some lawsuits before the judges ” , says Alexandru Păunescu, president of the CSALB Coordination Board.

Valentin Cocean, CSALB Conciliator: “I realized that there are several banks that propose radical solutions, cancellation of debts and openness to serious social or medical situations. That would be a change for the better that I can see. On the other hand, banks that have never had an appetite for reconciliation have not changed anything this year and have stayed in the same area where they do not accept applications or, if they do, are not willing to make concessions. In the same category are banks that unproductively insist on solutions that are not applicable, such as the one in which the balance reduction by 30 percent is applied only if the bank’s customer pays 70% of the balance in three months.
I also identify a good long-term strategy for some banks, those that accept in particular negotiations that do not involve a consumer problem, but rather the resolution of a state of dissatisfaction. I would say that these types of actions, as is the case with the 91 lei profits, although they mainly have an interest in the image of the respective bank, they also have great relevance for the development of trust between banks and consumers. ”