Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Ombudsman of Česká spořitelna

Ceska Sporitelna Ombudsman
A blessing in disguise or the enemy dressed as a friend?

Lets have a closer look at the Ombudsman office that th Ceska Sporitelna Bank has. The Ombudsmans team of this Czech bank is located at their headquarters in Prague 4 on Olbrachtova,

Back home we also have the Ombudsman and we also had a national ombudsman who was always standing up and fighting for the rights of victims, both private and business clients, who had suffered damages due to actions taken by a Government agency or by a large company such as banks and telecom companies for example.

I was originally told that the Ombudsman at Ceska Sporitelna is fully independant and that he is there to help / protect and advice the customers of Ceska sporitelna incase of any incidents that might have occured between bank and customer.

This made sense to me as the Ombudsmen that I had experienced back in my home country acted very much in the same fashion. I was looking forward to talking to the Ceska Sporitelna Ombudsman so that I could finaly get some good advice and solotiuns on how to get Ceska sporitelna to return a large sum of money to us which they had incorrectly charged us.

Things were looking good with Ceska sporitelna I had thought and the end of this mess was coming in sight.

The matter was urgent for me as the money that they were holding was needed to pay suppliers and other costs. As the money was ours to begin with we thought that the Ceska Sporitelna Prague Bank would appologize for their mistakes and quickly pay us. I needed the money really urgent and I felt like the image below:



The Ombudsman of Ceska Sporitelna informed us that he has legally 30 days to deal with the case and as it was somewhat complex he would most likely need all period. Well, not much I could do against that. I would end up in so much trouble in 30 days with my business but better some action then no action.

I waited and counted day by day and finally after the 30 days passed I called the office of the Ceska Sporitelna Ombudsman and asked for any news. Some assistant told me that nothing had been done yet, she couldnt tell me when they would start.

I asked for the ombudsman and I then discovered he went on holiday 2 days before and he would stay away for 1 month.

No time for my case and then go on holiday for a month and not even have the business courtesy to send me some form of update although you had promised all would have been taken care off by then end of the 30 days. The guy came back to work after 1 month and I have waited a lot more since then.

The ombudsman at Ceska Sporitelna has clearly proven that his function is not independant and that he is only looking out for the banks interest and has shown that he is completely unreliable and simply lies to clients. This is not the idea behind the possition of an ombudsman.

Why then create this department in the first place? Is it possibly because it just gives you more credibility towards the banking industry and your customers? Because this ombudsman is about as effective as George Bush is as US president.

Pan Jednatel of Ceska Sporitelna, get your household in order. You guys at the largest Czech Bank are giving this whole country a bad name with your inferior customer service as well as your financial products.

Shame on you Ceska Sporitelna!

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