Société Générale Reviews 

Bank and staff are okay, but monthly charges are a killer!

After ten years loyalty by using the bank for project I was very disappointed by their refusal to grant our company our payment holiday for three months through the third National Lockdown. All of our other regular lenders agreed to assist whilst we were closed. This should the the lenders has no empathy and doesn’t care about its customers. I would advise anyone thinking of using them to think twice, as they won’t be there in your time of need. Utterly, appalled by their poor customer service.

I have lived in France between 2004 and 2011 (banking with Boursorama), now living in Germany (banking with BNP Consorsbank). I still have my old account with the SoGe due to some investments to PEA. I wanted to use this account again, it took me 1,5 months to establish the espace client, but impossible to do SEPA transfer, after numerous and numerous calls and messages with my SoGe advisor and ligne technique - the reason is that non-residents cannot make virements via espace client. This was never communicated and is nowhere documented!!!! SoGe is not a bank, this a fonction publique frozen in the 80-ies. I have seen a few banks in the US (MBA studies), East Europe and Germany (work) - all of them were better by a class. At SoGe you cannot dowload a SEPA transfer form, the advisor must send it to you, you cannot fill it out online, but in handwriting. At SoGe no one could speak English which I don't mind with a good command of French, but again SoGe is a fonction publique full of fonctionnaires. For expats, my advice is to avoid this bank by miles.
To be fair, the SoGe espace client is well structured and ergonomic, but again you cannot see statements and transactions older than 3 months, in my Czech bank Airbank I can go years and years back...

Bank charged me by mistake already 3 months in a row and every time I need to ask them to return my money. It is just insane!

Depuis trois mois maintenant, on me fait payer Sobrio par erreur et je dois à chaque fois prendre contact pour récupérer mon argent. Quelqu'un peut-il s'occuper de ce problème une fois pour toutes ?

I'm an International student in Dijon, and there has been not a thing that the bank did correct, mistakes everywhere, have to come to their office again and again.

If I could let a minus infinite stars, I will do that... Every 6 months, it's been decades that I'm with this bank, everything was really good, employees were nice with me and my family, b'cause my entire family is with that bank. But recently, the service went awful, there are not even respecting customer, for some operations, they are asking some documents such as ID card but at final, they don't need it or it's not allowed to do this operation. Anyway, if you stay in France and you want a bank account, I advice you to create a dematerialized bank account such as N26 or Hello Bank.

The branch near Les Halles ( Tours )
What a shame that agents barely speak English to the client accept an old sweet lady reception. I was there to open an account with an agent name
BOUKOU PEMBA CORINE, after I gave all my files, she told me that I have to wait 3-4 days to know if my account will be approved or not but I’ve been waiting for more than a week and nobody contacted me back, so I called and asked what’s going on? The agent
BOUKOU PEMBA CORINE said, my files wasn’t approved! Then I asked her what happened and what can I do more? In order to open an account? She doesn’t answer me right away, she said that she’s busy right now and she’ll call me back and of course she’s totally disappeared! I was like oh my god! The agent ignored me! If I didn’t call to find out I’ll never know what the hell is going on! Nobody was going to contact me back! What kind of agent or bank do this to the clients? It’s a joke😂 Guys, If you want the best banking service go to SOCIETE GENERALE 🤞🏽

This bank have caused us serious distress since October 2019, they have lied to us, threatened us, gave us a cheque interdiction, charges totalling over 3k which could have been avoid, now when credits come into our bank account they take them out, hold them for three days, make us overdrawn and then have the audacity to charge us for being overdrawn. They are rude, unresponsive, takes days or weeks to reply. I have a tourist business and had to shut for three months because of COVID 19, they decided to make us pay back our 1500k overdraft even though we had no money!!! They are incompetent fools and I would recommend you do not use this bank. What they are doing to our account at the moment seems illegal.

le pole succession de la societe generale remporte la palme de l incompetence.a ce jour, le repondeur vous indique qu en raison du confinement et de la forte absence du personnel ,le service ne peut vous repondre..que par courrier...de qui se moque t on?

I lost 3 euros (0.30 eur per minute) and nobody responded after it just handed up automaticly.

THAT IS A VERY VERY BAD SERVICE! I WILL CHANGE MY BANK I FUTURE

WORST BANK EVER IN FRANCE.BEEN WAITING ON THE PHONE ALMOST 40 MINUTES AND NO REP.

DONT EVER USE THIS BANK LIKE EVEEEER

Although SG is miles away from British banks in terms of efficiency, they have a personalised serviced that works. They need to improve on reducing bureaucracy though, and make the system more seamless.

Really bad customer service, do not open bank account there you will only have problems. My account was supposed to be for free as I am a student but since I wasn't using it they started charging me money that in a year climbed up to quite a big amount. I was not aware of that otherwise I would have never opened it at their bank. I am really disappointed and mad. Moreover, if you call they are not really able to help you, they cannot answer your questions. I had previously bank account at LCL, it was much better, everything for free for students and they do not make any problems!!!!

they're know only to sale the package. alot of charge for the service that never serve well. as a customer, i felt like i got robe my money.

Terrible customer service, bank adviser promised to cancel insurance contract he was not supposed to conclude in the first place; then turned out he lied and the client had to do all the work by herself. General disregard of the way they deal with people's money, time and patience. Absolutely would not recommend to anyone in France

Terrible customer service in Paris Kleber branch! Absolutely the rudest and in fact sadistic customer service even with the representatives on their general customer service number. Don’t bank with them if you have a choice!

I asked for the rates the bank would apply and they told me 0.1% with a maximum limit at $70.
In reality, they applied 2% hidden fees and wanted to steal $1,200 from me. Luckily I found help thanks to Moneytis website but I will do my best to make sure everyone knows how much the bank is stealing from them!!

TERRIBLE RUDE STAFF AT DOMONT BRANCH (JUST OUTSIDE PARIS, Dept 95330), I ADVISE YOU NOT TO GO THERE. Also be advised that other branches may be the same.

This bank will sell you their dead grandmother. They will try and put fear into you to take out insurance you do not need. e.g My home is already insured but they still want me to take out insurance with them and have all kinds of protection. Then when you say not they will try and sell you something else. It's non-stop.

They are also not up to date with modern bank technology. You can't even make a simple transfer without having to go into your branch or sending a fax to get it signed off.

This bank used to be good but they have gone down the drain. My bank advisor was even talking about me and shaking her head at reception, thinking that I could not see her. I am just waiting until I move town before I write them a letter telling them adieu.