The dark side of the banks

The Turkish banking system is the main pillar on which the Turkish economy rests. The durability of the banks has been tested over and over again, and they all passed all kinds of stress tests and real attacks with flying colors. It seems that the lessons to be learned from the previous crisis have all been learned.

Furthermore, the banking sector has become one of the most profitable after the Internet industry in previous years. Their profit was 19.8 billion dollars last year. According to every major survey, Turkish banks will continue their robust growth in the coming decade. 

There are numerous factors for this, but the use of technology and innovation is one of the key elements of this incredible performance. Turkish banks use technology to create new ways of marketing, such as an SMS credit channel, and they use this to measure risk in the most efficient way. 

However, I have unfortunately seen that the technology is being used only when it is for the benefit of the bank and not for its customers. 

In a time of great sorrow, I learned that some identity thieves had copied my debit card and withdrawn cash from various ATMs. My bank account had been cleaned out to the nickel. As soon as I noticed what happened, I called the bank, canceled all my cards and froze the account. The call center agent told me to file two different complaints and send them to two different fax numbers.

I did what he told me to do immediately. He told me that I should wait and that the bank would call me after the investigation was over. Two weeks passed and no one called. I went to the bank myself and the supervisor told me that it was still under investigation and that I should wait. Two more weeks passed and I finally called the supervisor and told him that I wanted to close all of my accounts, including the one for my company. 

Only after that did I receive a call from the bank. The investigator told me that they couldn’t pursue any action because one of the faxes that I sent was missing. I didn’t take it lightly as it was already a month and they had done nothing or notified me. 

Mind you, this is the same bank that sends me an SMS almost every day to sell me a new product and had kept track of all of my debt to the dime for years. When they have to pay, suddenly they become the most incompetent institution in the world that cannot find a fax message. 

After that she started to interrogate me. She asked if I had the card with me at the time when my account was being drained. She asked whether I had gone to the police or not. I was being treated as if I was the thief. Now it has been a month and still I don’t have my money back, and I have no idea when the bank will feel that it is acceptable to let me have my hard-earned money back. It is a big irony to have been treated like this by a bank that has the motto “everything is for you.” 

I know that it is not only about my own bank. For every bank, we are all guilty until proven innocent when it comes to these types of situations. 

Instead of making life miserable for us, they could have an insurance scheme where they would return the money stolen immediately and pursue the investigation simultaneously. If they find a claim to be fraudulent, then they would have the right to charge the person who made the false claim. Currently, they both charge and sentence the innocent. I would understand if they were going down and under, but this kind of behavior from an industry that makes the biggest profit of all is just inhumane.