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Banking metropolis Frankfurt: Strange relationship with customers
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DANIEL ROLAND / AFP
Many banks show an idiosyncratic relationship with their customers - and on top of that with the case law in Germany.
Especially when it doesn't work out in your favor.
This is currently evident in two places:
Millions of customers have paid illegal fees for their checking accounts and simply do not get them back.
According to an estimate by the financial regulator Bafin, it is around three billion euros.
Hundreds of thousands have not received the interest due to them on premium savings contracts.
And that despite clear judgments by the Federal Court of Justice and clear orders from the Bafin.
Here, too, there are estimates of a total of over a billion euros for 300,000 affected customers.
A number of judgments have already been made here.
And nine model lawsuits are now running: including against the savings banks in Leipzig, Zwickau, Nuremberg and Munich.
But there are more than a hundred savings banks and banks that have incorrectly calculated the interest for their customers.
This delaying tactic by financial institutions should not be worthwhile.
Let's take action against it.
Therefore, I would like to show you how you can effectively achieve your rights with little effort.
Interest stealing from savings banks and banks
Around twenty years ago, banks and especially savings banks sold hundreds of thousands of customers variable savings contracts with bonuses.
Customers were supposed to save every month, and the bank gave them a bonus once a year.
The interest on the account, high at the time, should be able to rise and fall variably - and thus keep the bank's risk within limits.
Especially since many savings banks decided to raise and lower savings interest rates in the manner of a landlord.
Actually, they weren't allowed to do it that long.
The Federal Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that such clauses are ineffective.
As a result, courts have condemned savings banks and banks to offer customers a comprehensible benchmark for the development of interest rates and to pay accordingly - end of the lordship.
The judgments set fairly clear benchmarks:
The benchmark for variable interest rates is long-term reference interest rates.
The savings interest must be checked regularly on the benchmark (for example, monthly).
Even small changes in the reference interest rate must have consequences for the savings rate.
The savings rates change relative to the reference rate.
So if the reference interest rate falls from 4 to 1 percent, the savings rate should also fall by three quarters from 3 to 0.75 percent.
But many savings banks and banks have not told their customers about the new rulings, and certainly not have made the customer a suitable offer.
Instead, the board members have considered which interest rate they can choose as a benchmark for the bank.
And instead of making new contracts, they have - as it is legally called - adopted the interest rate standard that is favorable for the bank by way of supplementary contract interpretation.
Maybe they would even have got away with this scam.
But when the clearly agreed savings premiums became too expensive in the low interest rate phase, savings banks and banks began to kick their customers out.
They started to cancel the older savings contracts in particular.
Pack formation against state power
This meant that customers were increasingly concerned with the interest on their contracts.
First they moved to the consumer advice center and then to court.
Nine model declaratory actions have been filed by consumer centers against savings banks across Germany.
In the end, it became too much even for the rather sluggish financial supervisory authority Bafin.
At the end of June, she asked the savings banks and banks to explain to customers who had not yet woken up that their interest rates had possibly been calculated too low.
Now the pack was formed: 1,100 financial institutions have since filed an objection to this general decree of the Bafin.
Before the supervisory authority could act, the courts would first have to decide on the complaints, so one of the arguments.
In addition, the contradiction of the respective savings bank or bank saves time per se.
Within the Bafin, the objection will now be processed in a different organizational unit than the exit ruling.
If the general ruling remains, then the banks can finally bring an action before the administrative court.
This can take a while.
Illegal account fees
A similar phenomenon is currently emerging with account management fees.
This time practically all institutes that charge fees are affected.
In April, the Federal Court of Justice ruled quite clearly that banks had to expressly agree their fees with customers.
If the customer is simply silent about a price increase, no consent can be derived from this.
The judges speak of a "fictitious approval".
But this has been the usual way in the industry for years.
And it follows immediately: the banks do not have to repay fees that have not been validly agreed.
Hardly any bank does that on its own.
My colleagues at »Finanztip« have therefore developed a sample letter with which you can expressly claim the fees.
It has now been accessed well over 100,000 times.
After all: "Finanztip" has now received positive responses to customers from over twenty banks.
In other words, from banks that have paid their customers on demand.
These include above all Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks, but also Sparda banks and individual savings banks such as Sparkasse Darmstadt and Stadtsparkasse Augsburg.
ING, DKB, Volkswagenbank and Netbank also pay.
But so far, according to our data, only ING has approached its customers on its own initiative, and they should now get their money back.
Lack of terminology among bank directors
Most banks and savings banks instead allow themselves to be pleaded for a long time, stonewalled and tell their customers that they still do not know exactly what the verdict means for them.
Or they claim that the judgment does not concern them at all.
It was directed against the Postbank.
For example, Sparkasse Bad Kissingen does this in a letter to customers.
(Postbank was actually the trigger for the verdict, but when the Federal Court of Justice passes such a verdict, it always has fundamental significance.)
more on the subject
Refund of bank fees: Now you have to pick up your money tooA column by Hermann-Josef Tenhagen
And even with the banks that reimburse fees, such as the Volksbanken in Bremen, Dresden or Oldenburg, not all that glitters is gold. In principle, of course, customers are entitled to all of the excessively charged fees of the past decades. As a customer, you can only successfully reclaim the last three years from 2018. The rest of the time is statute-barred. However, a number of Volksbanks are now pretending that even increases since 2018 have become ineffective.
But that's nonsense.
Let me illustrate this with an example: Let's assume that it is an account that was set up in 2012.
The account management originally cost 2.90 euros.
In 2016 the prices (without active approval) were increased to 4.90 euros per month.
And in 2018 they were increased again to 6.90 euros per month.
Most banks now calculate like this: 2018 is not statute-barred.
Since the fee was increased by 2 euros.
That makes 2 euros times 43 months (up to and including July) equal to 86 euros.
In fact, the first increase in 2016 was already invalid.
So the difference is 4 euros, even if customers can only claim it retrospectively for three calendar years.
So that's double the amount: 172 euros.
And the fees for individual bookings or other bank services can also be added.
Nevertheless, the number statistics from »Finanztip« are almost positive.
If you still know a bank that has paid, write to me at bankgebuehren@finanztip.de.
Some go straight to blackmail
Among hundreds of e-mails and a few letters, two Swabian Volksbanks with such attempts have been put on record with my colleagues.
In response to the sample letter, the Volksbanker wrote: Dear customer, of course you have the right to get the money back.
But if you want the money back, we'll kick you out.
Right away.
Some bank executives seem to think that such an approach is normal.
And their supervisors, in the case of the Stuttgarter Volksbank, for example, the head of the Regulatory Control Council of the state of Baden-Württemberg and a partner of the Deloitte auditors, let such bank executives do theirs.
When asked, they did not answer this week.
PDS Bank Hessen Thüringen took this principle to extremes, completely denied the customer claim and simply threw the customer out:
The basic attitude that we decide which jurisdiction we implement without complaint and which is undermined is alien for an industry that relies on the trust of its customers.
So here are my recommendations for customers of stubborn banks:
1.
Premium savers
.
If your bank or savings bank does not want to pay the interest, send the consumer advice center or the lawyer on your neck.
Even if you cancel your savings contract until 2018, you can still demand more money.
You can read here how it works.
This is particularly important for customers whose contracts ended in 2018, because next year they will no longer be able to claim any more money.
But don't stop there.
If - as is often the case - it concerns a savings bank, the next call is to the office of the head of the board of directors of your savings bank.
So mostly to the mayor or district administrator.
They are sensitized in times before elections.
Ask the supervisor of your savings bank how this can happen with the miscalculation.
2.
In the case of
inadmissible bank charges
, the decision is even easier.
You don't have to accept the fee rump.
Give the bank a deadline with a sample letter.
And if the bank hesitates, you can be nice and ask the ombudsman to explain the ruling of the Federal Court of Justice to the bank again.
Or you can go straight to a debt collection company who will then collect your money.
A bank that quickly pays back fees that have been overpaid has proven itself to be a trustworthy business partner.
A bank that I have to push for a long time to pay is questioning trust.
Clarify with the bank how such dissatisfaction can be avoided in the future.
Deutsche Bank and Postbank, for example, first want to have the rules for their account fees clarified, and additional payments should not be made until later.
In such cases, be sure to choose the future cheapest account model.
3.
A bank that blackmailed me like above has lost my
trust
.
Changing banks is very easy today.
And you can still claim the overpaid fees even after switching.
Thank goodness there are enough banks that repay the illegal fees at least on request.
Trust takes a long time to build, but it can quickly be destroyed.