Ma Banque BNP Paribas Reviews 3,442

The worst banking experience I've ever had in my life. BNP Paribas stole my money when closing the bank account - luckily not a big amount (around 40 EUR), but they simply closed my bank account from day to day and never sent me the balance that was left there. To this day I haven't even received the closing statement, despite asking for it several times via phone, mail, facebook and even visiting a branch physically.

I'm not going through the haggle of suing them because of 40 EUR - something they obviously rely on - but I strongly advise everyone to avoid these thieves.

Blocking our account without any explanation for more than 1 full week. We asked 3 times for the reason, there is considerable of money to cover all expenses. Our branch in Stockel is incapable to find out why! No resolution although they know their blocking is unlawful.

They seriously asked us to write a letter to their head office and ask for explanation!!!

Guys, stay out, these people are absolutely not trustworthy. Changing my bank.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS NIGHTMARE!
This bank is the worst bank even in LYON France, specifically in Victor Hugo and 39 Rue Grenette, 69002 Lyon Branch! For foreigners, students, people from all around the world! This bank is a scam! Worst customer service! They have no proper communication with their other branches/colleagues.

WORST BANK IN EUROPE! THEY SHOULD SHUT DOWN!
My experience was a nightmare! I was tossed with different bank branches of BNP just to resolve an issue (to withdraw my money since i still dont have my card yet). PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS BANK IF YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY.

Please save yourself the frustration and find another bank. BNP staff are completely unresponsive, their online banking needs confirmation emails and calls (which might get a reply after 1-2 weeks), and their system doesn’t talk to itself so you are continually battling to prove very basic information.

Whenever we try to do an online transfer, nothing happens for a week and we have to keep chasing BNP.

It’s a small amount to a pre-approved beneficiary.

BNP already has my mobile phone approved in your system (via letter and then entering the security code) and they don’t recognise it.

We spoke a number of times. Each time, they promised an answer in 5-30 minutes and didn’t contact me as promised and so I had to keep chasing them.

Then they made me do this extra work, sending photos of business cards, and for what? Just wasting more of my time.

This is completely unacceptable. I’ve banked around the world and this is by far the most appalling experience in my life.

In Italy this bank is called BNL. It’s the worst bank I have ever had account in. They have the poorest costumer service. They should be banned in Europe.

BNP Paribas is the worst bank I have ever experienced - and I have done business with about 6 banks from the USA and in developing countries, and the poorest country in Europe.

My review echoes the same points as all the previous reviews. The bank has unbelievably high fees, like I've never seen before. The bank employees are incompetent, unhelpful, and useless. The bank and its policies are so inefficient, inept, restrictive, impracticable, and stringent that it renders basic transactions nearly impossible.

It is ridiculous: a bank that does not let you use your own money.
What is the point of a bank if it fails to do all of the basic functions? You cannot deposit money in it freely, you cannot withdraw money unless it's a tiny amount, you cannot transfer money outside of Eurozone, you cannot speak to staff (usually unavailable), you will get charged $90 per year for all this lack of service, etc, etc, etc. Examples:

1. It took 2 months to open my bank account despite having the right documentation and money.

2. Without warning or consent, they began to charge me about 90 dollars per year in 2016, without ever consulting me, without my permission. By the time I saw that they had already taken the money out, I called and email, but they refused to reimburse or resolve the problem.

3. One clueless/ incompetent/ malicious counselor relentlessly threatened that she would closed down my account because I moved out out of the country -- when BNP actually allows all people who move out to keep their account, and other BNP employees I spoke with confirmed it, and has branches specifically dedicated to people living abroad. Apparently she had no idea or missed her training, and chose to keep threatening me, which caused me much stress and anxiety and minor trauma.

4. The bank and counselor is never available. You are assigned to 1 branch only - every time I call, nobody answers.

5. They change your counselor every couple of months - In 2 years that I had the bank, I had about 5 counselors.

6. You cannot deposit money into your account: I exchanged $2,000 and the bank would not allow me to put them in my account, not even in small parts, without producing several pieces of document where the money was coming from. And if you try to deposit money in small amounts, they call you in the bank to ask where the money is coming from -- they assume that you are a terrorist unless you provide 100 pieces of evidence documents to justify YOUR OWN Money!!

7. You cannot withdraw money from it - the limit that you can withdraw is so low that it is not possible to live with it and is virtually useless. This was especially hard when I was working in foreign aid in a developing country, with cash economy, and had to beg them to increase my limit or else I wouldn't be able to survive in the country without the cash.

8. The employees are plain and simple incompetent. They were nice, but it took 2 young men to try to open my bank account (aka input my name and address into their system). One counselor was could not even locate the closest BNP branch to my address even with the map of my address and surrounding BNP banks on her computer screen.

9. It took 4 months to change my address. (This was the point when the malicious counselor also threatened to close down my account altogether because my new address was abroad). Even though BNP allows accounts for people who move abroad.

10. Everything is done through snail mail. Makes everything take weeks or months.

11. The security features are so high and overly excessive (and even involve SnailMail codes), that they prevent people from using their own accounts. This defeats the purpose of the bank. BNP Paribas needs to enter into 2018, it is still 100 years behind.

I can go on and on. I have never been so frustrated, and disappointed with a service like this ever before. Dealing with them for even the smallest inquiry became so stressful that it gave me minor trauma and great anxiety, and I still suffer from those feelings. I have seen banks in third world, developing countries that provide better service.

Please do yourself a favor and use another bank. Never ever this one.

I have been a customer of this bank since last 8 years..And finally today I just decided that I am done with this terrible customer service... I am travelling and before leaving France I told them several times that could you increase my card limit and the person confirmed that . But once I out of the country it doesn't work. I even called them 3 times and someone always picked up and they told they would get back. But never returned.. just unethical people... We trust out banks and thats how they treat us.... how can a company treat their clients such..Guys please if you are non French just avoid this bank.. they are just terrible

The worst bank I have ever dealt with and by far the worst customer service from a company. I've spent 4 months trying to open a French bank account for my year abroad... I'm now halfway through the year and still do not have access to my account. I have sent countless emails to the employee in charge of my account who has not responded. Appalling customer service. Save yourself the hassle and go elsewhere!

Absolutely useless and complete nonsense in terms of process.

It got easier for me to Transfer money between two international accounts from my UK bank than doing a money transfer from a BNP Paribas account to another BNP Paribas account.

They also provided me with a support number bwhich I called from abroad and an automatic message told me "this number can only be reached from outside France". Utter nonsense and the least helpful CS!!!!

Absolutely useless at most things, very hard to deal with, impossible to telephone or email and expensive to boot. I've been trying to close an account now for three months and the charges keep being taken from my account while no action is taken to close a simple account. BNP is simply years out of date with no customer service, high charges and dreadful communications. All the staff seem to take weeks off without any notice and only work 10-12 if they do turn up. Impossible to get another branch to do anything, you have to go to your own branch( I was even told to go to my own branch to change 100 euro note!).
Do youself a favour, get an free N26 online account and never give any Direct Debits to anyone, pay online by card.

Takes 3 months to change my own address on my profile. First, they change it to my SG address, when I specifically asked them to change it to the UK one. Then they put a weird combination of both addresses which did not make sense.. 15 emails later, they ask for a hardcopy? We are in the 21st century. Until now I have not been able to change my address to change my handphone number on my own account. Worst bank ever

Unfair and INSANE high charges for everything which is hidden in the small print. When I did an internet search I also see they have been fine Billions for various things so it looks like they need to ripoff their customers to pay all the fines

The way they conduct their business is irresponsible to say the least!
They are currently holding invalid address details for us, which they got wrong in the first place and now will not update to our correct address as listed on companies house for some absurd reason. So no correspondence reaches us, it goes to an unknown address which we cannot retrieve.
We have asked to have our invoices sent to us electronically which we never receive either, and each time are told they had a system error or some other pathetic excuse.
I look forward to our contract ending and being able to move forward with a reputable bank next time!

This bank and especially this branch has been the worst bank I've ever had. I'll explain you some examples: 1. They changes my personal bank consultant many many times and each time they didn't notify me. So each time I had to discover that my 'conseiller' is a new person. 2. Almost all of these 'conseillers' were necer available to respond me over phone or answer my emails on time. It looks like they have few good, motivated and dedicated conseillers that they assign them to their big rich clients and the rest, who are actually normal clients with medium to high revenue range, they assign them to junior or not-dedicated conseillers. 3. Once and only once my account passed the minus limit for a week or 2, for each rejected payments they charged me a big fee. I had all my insurances with them and I always had enough money in my account. You can judge the service when things go wrong and yes they didn't pass. 4. I had an issue with my online account and I sent hundreds of emails, many phone calls, asking for the resolution, and guess what I still have the issue after almost 2 years. 5. I have issues to transfer money online and I have asked for resolution but no answer at all. So each time I have to send money to someone I have to call and ask for the service or go to the bank, and guess what I realized that they were charging me around 4 euros each time they did this for me. 6. My visa card was expiring so I requested a new card, it arrived around 1 month after the expiry of last card, even though I had told them in advance, so imagine 1 month with no card. 7. I received a letter saying that my card is arrived to the bank and is ready for pick up, so I went the day after to the bank and they said it's not here, with no sorrow or anything!!!
All in all, I highly recommend that you don't select BNP Paribas.

BNP-Paribas bank in France invests in companies that manufacture and supply nuclear weapons.

Right now, countries that have nuclear weapons are all in the process of upgrading them. To do those upgrades, a lot of countries use private contractors. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or BAE Systems make key components for nuclear weapons. It’s part of the military industrial complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the world about in the 1950s.

Companies want to make money. So do banks and pension funds. The difference is that banks use their client’s money to make investments, to build up a profit. That’s your money. That’s where you have power.

Banks don’t want to lose clients, so they don’t want to look bad. When we make noise about their investments in Armageddon, investments in doomsday, Banks start looking really bad. BNP-Paribas is one of those banks.

In some countries, nuclear weapons are completely illegal, but not yet in every country. Some banks, like BNP Paribas, will use this as an excuse, saying that their investments in nuclear weapon producers are okay. But they’re not. There is a moral and ethical line on what is acceptable and what is not. Nuclear weapons are unacceptable, and its time to get the banks on board. How can BNP Paribas say that it’s time to divest from tobacco and fracking, yet not be divesting from nuclear weapons?

STOP investing in nuclear weapons BNP-Paribas!

(Je suis un client étrangère donc je me permets d'écrire en anglais l'avis).

I don´t reccommend BNP Paribas, specially the Online Branch (Agence en Ligne)

I have been client of BNP Paribas since 2015 when I was still student and BNP offered special opening conditions as a business partner from my business school (Ecole de Commerce).
After moving out of Paris to another French city, I decided to join the Online branch (Agence en Ligne). Unfortunately, in the Agence en Ligne I have found the most unprofessional staff from BNP Paribas for several reasons:
- They haven´t delivered in many promises both economic or just customer-service-based like call backs.
- They miss 95% of the telephone appointments (you take an appointment and they just don´t call you).
- Completely unprofessional service after a problem with fraud charges in my debit card. It took 4-5 months and more than a dozen of calls to get reimbursed...
- They have change my personal advisor several times.
- They don´t reply the internal messages
- They have a high-fee structure

If you are looking for a good online banking provider I recommend you to look somewhere else.

It is the worst bank who does not care about their clients. They charge some random insane fees and they do not explain why do they charge them. I had the worst experience with them - it is crazy to think that this could be international bank. Do not even think about getting their services, you would save more money by not!!!

Agreed. It is the worse bank I ever encountered. 4 years with them never one time we felt service is acceptable. The consultants are arrogant, rude and lazy. To have appointment with them it takes weeks or months. When you meet them they made you feel like they are doing you a big favour by granting you an appointment. You can complain you can take it to their superior, no action.

We moved home and I was hopeful it will be better. I went to new branch to get an appointment. 3 weeks after when I turned up for the appointment a rude and arrogant woman came out "pas moi" "pas rdv". Now we keep our account really small just deposit and withdraw nothing else.

Sadly, the bank has good products but are having idiots with high ego sitting in big office and turn down customers. I suggest they do not waste money advertising for business until their staff is trained to treat customers well.

This is the worst bank ever! Don't make the mistake to open an account there! These people are the definition of obnoxious French people who refuse to speak English!I opened an account when I was living in Paris and in the 5 years I have the account I couldn't find one person to speak English. They are so, so rude and charge insane fees for no reason. The fact that all of the reviews here are so bad says a lot about them.
STAY AWAY FROM BNP PARIBAS, THE WORST! BANK EVER

Have a Online bank account in France with them. Awful customer support, awful reactivity and overall really bad experience.
A real pain in the a** to actually talk to your Counselor, even though you may have called ten times or book a meeting.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BANK TO ANYONE !