A Unionbank Internet Banking Service Experience - It Sucks!

Have you ever been duped by a bank?

I've been a Unionbank of the Philippines checking account holder for quite some time now, and have twice been a victim of a faulty internet banking system and poor people service.

I once got penalized more than PhP 3,000.00 pesos as penalty for having insufficient funds for a check that I issued. But in thruth, I made sure that I deposited enough money in my checking account before the check's due date, enough to cover the drafted amount, plus an additional PhP 200.00 to cover an expected end-of-month penalty fee for not meeting the bank's required average daily balance. It turned out that my checking account was debited PhP 400.00, instead of PhP 200.00, a day before my issued check's due date, for not meeting the required monthly balance, which therefore left me PhP 200.00 short of my check's issued amount.

I immediately deposited the lacking amount as soon as I found out about this, only to find out that the check had already cleared. In turn, I was forced to pay a penalty fee of more than PhP 3,000.00 for this fiasco (roughly half was for the requesting bank, and half was for Unionbank).

I soon found out that the reason why their internet banking system "automatically" debited PhP 400.00 from my account was because it was not able to debit PhP 200.00 for the previous month (for being lower than the required average daily balance), even though my account had more than enough money to accommodate the debit amount.

Anyone with half a brain can see that this was, as clear as daylight, a system fault and that I should not be the one to suffer from this. And at the very least, the penalty fee covering Unionbank's side should have been waived.

I tried to reason out with the branch officers but no one could even lift a finger to help me out, all claiming that everything was system generated, and that they had to get clearance form "upstairs". Dang! Talk about empowerment, these were managers I talked to! I even wrote an email to the bank's president, Mr. Ortiz, to no avail.

It just goes to show you that all they care about is money. And they seem to forget that the reason they have any money at all is because of their clients.

The bank ought to review their existing system as well as their existing business rules. And as for their personnel, they ought to empower them more, so that they could make on the spot decisions when it comes to situations like these. And most of all, they should train their employees more on how to enhance their people skills.