Ceska Sporitelna - Worst Czech Bank

Ceska Sporitelna Rescinded Student Bonus

2006-11-08T02:16:00.000+01:00

I found this in Nicmoc's Blog in the Google cache. The actual site no longer excists but the cache remains. I wonder if the long reach of the arm reached this poor bloggers site.

"Jack the Ripper strikes again! It wasn't enough that Jack Stack secretly rescinded the 10,000 Kc bonus for students who graduated with honors. (If you remember, Ceska sporitelna first got students to take accounts with them with that gimmick, and then tried to say "just kidding" when they started graduatin. They lost because of the protest...) Now, Jack wants to steal money from dead people. People signed up for pension funds at Sporitelna on the promise that upon their death, their survivors would receive 10,000 crowns. The bank is now saying they changed the contracts, no doubt in the fine print on one of the hundreds of brochures you get along with the account statements they send along and no one reads."

Finding Competent People

2006-11-08T02:08:00.000+01:00

I just saw this other blogger post a remark about dealing with Ceska Sporitelna and he or she hit the nail right on the head.

http://www.fi.muni.cz/~kas/blog/index.cgi/world/cancel-this-account.html

Where do all the competent staff go to? There must be some or not? Or is the Human Resources at CSAS simply incompetent and they are only hiring more incompetent employees?

Czech Bank Joke of the Year

2006-11-08T01:38:00.000+01:00

I just saw this dumb advertisement that this Czech bank is still running which is infact rediculous.

None of what is being advertised is in fact offered to the client in reality. Is it not a crime to advertise lies so as to attract new customers.

What a suprise coming from the Czech Savings Bank. After one and a half year I am still waiting for a English speak business account representative. Expat tailored Banking Service, rubbish is what I call it.

No interest paid over 4.45 Billion Czech Crowns

2006-11-08T01:20:00.000+01:00

A recent news report mentioned the following:

"People still have CZK 4.45 billion in anonymous bank books at CS
Prague, Nov 6 (CTK) - People had CZK 4.45 billion in anonymous bank books in high-street bank Ceska sporitelna (CS) at end-Sept which means they withdrew CZK 570 million in the first nine months of this year, CZK 140 million of it in the third quarter, Helena Matuszna of CS press department has told CTK.
The bank has to cancel anonymous bank books within the fight against money laundering. Since the decision made in 2002, people have withdrawn over CZK 115 billion. They still have time to do so by end-2012.

Since 2003, the bank has been paying no interest on deposits in these bank books."

I completely understand the need to cancel these deposits however you issued them in the first place, you keep the bank books valid and still 4.45 Billion czk is outstanding on these special bank books but you refuse to pay interest on the money that you have in your accounts on behalf of these clients.

Seems like a neat little trick to me Ceska Sporitelna. Let the money stay with you until 2012 and reap the benefits of this extra capital but ofcourse the actual owner of the money doesnt get to share the benefits and you keep all that for yourselves. Sounds like a typic Ceska Sporitelna thing to do if you ask me.

Bravo Bravo to the largest Czech Bank. You guys stink!

Still Shocked by Ceska Sporitelna

2006-11-07T21:11:00.000+01:00

Shocked by Ceska Sporitelna

Am I just having a nightmare?

Did Ceska Sporitelna just screw me over?

Ceska Sporitelna did screw me over it seems and they have no intention on correcting their screw ups. They have pushed me into a horrible financial situation due to their mistakes. Some of these mistakes include:

Entering wrong percentages into contract and after not honouring their own contract.
Bank IT system downtime - The system we use as merchants was down all weekend on occasions. No form of tech support or number to call to fix their server crash. Have to wait until Monday 9 am. This results each time in tens of thousands of dollars loss in revenue. Their reply on our request for round the clock IT support: "It is too expensive"
CSAS Bank Management loosing documents which they promised to process and informing us about the fact that they lost the documents some 3 to 4 months later.

The items above are only a mere scratching of the surface of what this completely incompetent Czech bank has done to us. Why can this go unpunished for God's sake.

Where is lady justice when you need her. Well, you how the saying goes Ceska Sporitelna:

"What goes around, comes around."

I will be laughing my head of when that happens Mr. Stack.

Erste Bank - Wake up!

2006-11-07T09:26:00.000+01:00

Erste Bank

Erste Bank Austria owns a controlling interest in the largest Czech bank which is called Ceska Sporitelna.

In February 2000, Erste Bank purchased a 52% controlling stake in Ceska Sporitelna. Does Erste Bank shareholders and senior management know however what goes on with their Czech investment?

Does Erste Bank know how Ceska Sporitelna is ripping off customers and refusing to accept any form of blame for the errors and mistakes made by the Czech staff at Ceska Sportitelna. These staff are offcourse indirectly staff of Erste Bank and therefor the quality of the CSAS staff and the services they provide are directly related to the overal image of Erste Bank Ostenreich.

Erste Bank Austria, Please step in to take corrective auctions as the share price for your investment (Ceska Sporitelna) will end up dropping once all the bad publicity hits the fan. This type of inferior service that CSAS gives to it's clientelle can really no longer be accepted and tolerated.

Erste Bank Shareholders - Look after your investment as Erste Bank and Ceska Sporitelna might not be doing so.

Czech Business Ethics

2006-10-28T00:58:00.000+02:00

Doing Business the Czech Way!

What is wrong with these Czechs?

Czech business ethics smacked me right in the face today. It left me completely speechless as I really didn't see this one coming.

The Czech ombudsman system which can be found in use at large Czech companies is somewhat strange to begin with. They are supposedly independant and be there to solve problems between clients and the Czech company in question.

So far so good you might think, right?. Unfortunately unlike in the US or in the UK, the Ombudsmen are in the Czech Republic on the payroll of the company for which they perform their ombudsmen tasks.

I am not sure exactly what the profile would be when a Czech Bank goes out and recruits a new Ombudsman but that is a completely different story.

Indepenant Ombudsman

Thats the biggest oxymoran I have heard in years.

How the heck can someone be independent if they are just another employee of the Czech Savings Bank? In our case it has become crystal clear.

More then 6 months ago we informed them of an error which had cost us Lot's of money. Managers of the largest Czech bank acknowledged that their staff had made the error and that I would get the money back within 2 weeks.

As the amount was high I needed this money to pay of suppliers as that was their money that the bank was sitting on. Well 6 months later I still havent received a cent although even the Vice President of Ceska Sporitelna Czech Republic had personally been in my office and ensures a quick solution. That was 3 months ago!!

The CSAS ombudsman had also promised me that within 30 days all would be cleared. That was over nearly 4 months ago. He just lies and lies to me. No interest in my urgent need to fix this. I don't understand these guys. It was clear they made a mistake, its even in writing.

Why then continue to hold these funds again all business ethnics. Come on, Its on paper even from you that you accepted blame etc. Now off course you are forcing me to take this to court which can take up to 2 years or even more. That's criminal behaviour from the largest bank in the Czech Republic.

Thank you Ceska Sporitelna for completely ruining my life and my finances. You will pay for financial damages that have been caused due to your lack of care and any form of auction and the amount will be considerable as you have paralyzed us with your complete lack of caring or customer service.

Thank you Ms. Placha for giving me wrong information, Thank you Ms. Salzburgerova for forgetting to send the charge backs to Visa Card and me having to remind you 3 months later, Thank you Mr. Fisera for doing absolutely NOTHING at any time so as to resolve this matter and to help me, you are not an ombudsman!

And last but not least, thank you Mr. VP. Still no English account rep after nearly 18 months. You promised me one but still nothing. How poorly educated are your business managers. Not one branch in Prague 1 or Prague 2 has one that speaks English or German. This is too absurd for words!

I really do hope that the Czech media will pick up on this are you guys have cheated me. Its as simple as that!

How low can you go?

2006-10-27T06:50:00.000+02:00

How low can a bank go?

How low can you go? That was the question beforehand and the answer has become clear to me.

I just can's believe that they have done this to me. One thing can be taken as a certainty. I will take them to the dry cleaners for this.

How can a large Austrian owned bank do this to a customer. First you overcharged him by a very large amount which equals at least a new expensive car like a BMW for example. Then you admit to the client that you were wrong and then start playing games for 6 months and refusing to pay back these funds.

Six months ago did this Czech bank promise me that all would be taken care off within 2 weeks. Now 6 months later they call me and they simply state that they have decided to keep the money for some type of penalty.

Come on guys, you have created a horrible situation for me and you are now hitting the nail in the coffin. This is so low. I swear hereby that I will make it my life's mission to get back to you. Bloggers Unite! You guys will feel how I now feel.

And Mr. Vice President of the bank, you really pulled a fast one didn't you. You promised me one thing and now I try to call you and you suddenly refuse to take my call. You know what the situation is that I don't have a single English speaking bank staff to talk to as you hired poorly educated bank employees.

All the bank employees that speak languages are working for banks like HVB and ABN Amro as they at least pay their staff decent salaries. You can't get theater tickets at the front row for the price of a seat which is located high up somewhere on the balcony.

Let's not forget Mr. Jack Stack who seems to be hiding throughout the situation. Don't preach what you don't offer. Please never again use the word customer service or customer satisfaction as those are 2 phrases that are def finitely not applicable to your organization. Don't you agree?

Have a merry Christmas Czech saving bank. You ruined mine and all that I have worked for so hard. And all because your staff gave me wrong contracts.

Ombudsman of Česká spořitelna

2006-10-18T21:13:00.000+02:00

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!

Ceska Sporitelna Unbelievable

2006-10-18T18:10:00.000+02:00

Ceska Sporitelna = Problems

Ceska Sporitelna blog has been not very busy recently as I gave the management of the largest Czech bank the opportunity to do the right think.

I must have been delusional thinking that these so called bankers at the Ceska Sportitelna could act and do business with honor and decency. I am just shell shocked to see the complete incompetency of so many of the Ceska Sporitelna staff that I have to deal with on a nearly daily basis.

Expat Center Ceska Sporitelna = Incompetent CSAS Staff

So guys, when you move to Prague and you are in need of a bank account with a local bank then please think twice before opening up a bank account at the Ceska Sporitelna Expat Center which is located in Prague 1 on Rytirska 29.

The location of the largest branch of Ceskasporitelna in the center of Prague is halfway between the bottom of Vaclavske namesti and the famous Old Town Square with its big clock.

What ever you do, do not let the main receptionist / translator, Ms. Placha of the Prague Expat Center assist you with anything as you more then likely end up 1 year down the road in my shoes.

How in God's name can a person just simply dream up contract conditions, inform the Ceska Sporitelna client in writing and then don't even have the human decency to apologize for all the damage that you caused by giving out completely wrong information which in turn has caused massive financial damage.

Today's salute goes to the person who caused all these problems to start with! I hope that you will experience the same as what I have been put through by your stupidity.

DO YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE STUPIDITY? OPEN AN ACCOUNT AT CESKA SPORITELNA - VOTED BY ME AS: THE WORST CZECH BANK of the 21st Century.

Dont entrust your funds with Cespa Sporitelna Czech Republic. Just burn your money. Atleast you have some fun loosing your money that way as opposed to the way that your money goes MIA with CeskaSporitelna.

Please Sir, Do what is right.

2006-09-26T03:02:00.000+02:00

Dear Jednatel Ceska Sporitelna,

Please do what is fair and dont let those suffer by mistakes made by your team. Please help us Sir, I am sure you are a righteous man and you will do what is the right thing. Mr. Stack thank you. I hope that your reputation of being a straight and honoust CEO of Ceska Sporitelna is correct. I can sure need your help as no one else will with the exception of one other person.

Merci monsieur, Vous etes tres gentil. El chefe de Ceska Sporitelna na Praha

I am back at CSAS sucks

2006-09-26T02:26:00.000+02:00

I kept quiet hoping that my problems would get sesolved by the bank but it seems I kept up my hopes for nothing.

Ceska Sporitelna, you claim the be the biggest Czech bank in the country, how did you manage to get to that possition. Its obvious that customer service is on par with the level of customer service that one could expect in this country before the revolution in 1989. CSAS, does that by any change stand for the Czech Socialists Anal Suckers or what. Promise after promise but even the people highest up try to help but are blocked by the failure who ever hires staff at this kut praagse bank.

Lets see how it goes tomorrow, I have been promised some results. Do i hope that it will work out? Hell yeah! Do I think I have any chance in getting the results that I was promised. Naaaah. See you later Ceska Sporitelna and its completely incompitent Expat Centre at Rytarska which is supposed to the much acclaimed asset and service of the bank but has failed to impress even once. The best if when you try to reach one of then and they keep telling you that the person is on holiday at the expat centre of Ceska Sporitelna and when you visit the branch later that day the person in question is sitting awake and alive behind her pc and trying to duk so that you might not see her. Haha, its like kindergarden for God's sake. If you cant handdle the stress or pressure then switch job and become a Bata shoes salesperson or something. Stay the heck away from a financial organization such as this Czech Bank which is actually part of a larger Austrian financial institution known as Erste Bank. http://www.csas.cz

What would Good Soldier Svejk have done with csas.cz

2006-08-07T10:28:00.000+02:00

What would good old Solder Svejk do with this horrible bank at www.csas.cz I feel very much like him as this bank really thinks we are as dumb as Soldier Svejk looked like. Ceska Sporitelna should however not forget that the good old chap played dumb but in fact saw everything and ended up being right..

We received more terrible service today from this Czech Bank. Why why why, i dont know. They made us a promise some time ago and today they had promised to get the results to us. But guess what... we are only able to reach a secretary at www.csas.cz who informs us that all the managers who were dealing with this case are suddenly on holiday including the CEO, the Vice Presidents, the head of Consumer Affairs and others. How is keeping this Czech bank surviving I wonder if all of a sudden all senior management are on holiday. We really have no one to call as all have dissapeared to Miami, Stuffgart, Brno or who knows what place. I wish I could call them on their bullshit as I dontbelieve it. The bank had 3 months nearly to prepare the case and I was promised that in X amount of day this Czech bank would at the latest get back to me. Well now I hear the deadline has been moved and they cant tell me until when. Yeah right.. Ceska Sporitelna at www.csas.cz, you guys are the best bank in town (NOT) You guys messed up due to ill training of your staff and now that you have to cough up the money that the other party lost due to your staff's idiotic behaviour, you all of a sudden all go on holiday. Guys act like men and pay up what you owe.

Czech Banks - I sure hope they are better then Ceska Sporitelna

2006-08-04T06:31:00.000+02:00

Czech Banks are I hope not of the same horrible quality level as Ceska Sporitelna. I cant imagine the other Czech banks being this bad. I just dont understand the folks of Ceska Sporitelna. I am on the phone with one of them and she suddenly hangs up the phone. That sure pissed me off but I still needed to talk to her. Some one else picked up the line and informs me that the person in question is on holiday. Nice one lady, keep on lying Ceska Sporitelna. I cant believe that any other of the Czech banks would do this . Maybe it works like this: Anyone who gets fired at one of the other banks end up at Ceska Sporitelna. That would be one explanation for their crap service. Better try one of the other Czech banks.

You can try Ebanka, CSOB, or HVB for example. Good thing is that everyone speaks english there and you dont have to pay extra like you do with the Expat Center "membership"

Ceska Sporitelna - Even lying online

2006-08-03T01:09:00.000+02:00

Ceska Sporitelna and the truth are 2 completely different things. I was just doing some research and I found some funny stories that I would like to share with you.

I found in the testimonial section of a large English school in Prague some comment from a Prague 2 branch manager. The Ceska Sporitelna manager writes the following:

"I am glad to confirm that Ceska Sporitelna, a.s. District Branch Prague 2 has been a client of The Language House for more than 5 years. All the Ceska Sporitelna employees, who have taken part in The Language courses, were fully satisfied with the level of service that The Language House provided. The cooperation became more frequent when The Language House started the TEFL courses. We have met several Language House teachers and all of them were responsible and professionally working people, always willing to help when we were in need. In general, out of all of the teachers that I have met in Prague, I find the ones trained at The Language House to be the best"

My first question to the author of the above posting is as follows:
Otakar Soucek
Ceska Sporitelna
Director of Branch Prague 2

Its strange to hear that your staff speak english as I have not been able to find any for nearly year now. Even senior management from Ceska Sporitelna does not speak any English or atleast they dont want to communicate in English. I have been told by the senior management at head office that there is no way we can have an English speaking account manager as they dont have any one there that speaks English. I mean how insane is this. One of the largest banks in the Czech Republic and one that is infact foreign owned. You would expect more from this bank This shows you want a horrible bank this is. Ceska Sporotelna.!
No wonder why most prague based companies refuse to deal with this very bad Prague bank

Ceska Sporitelna - Worst Management of Czech Bank

2006-08-01T04:02:00.000+02:00

Ceska Sporitelna management has send us letter in which they appologized for some screw up they had done. They contineud with the standard bla bla and ended up offering me better conditions on my account. We were offcourse pleased and were happy the this crap Czech bank finally showed some form of remorse for all the horrible things they did to us.

Anyway so at the end of the month we looked through our bank statements statements found that the conditions given to me were not implemented. As the difference between what I was paying and should be paying ends up being a rather nice sum of money, I felt that I had to finally stand up as I couldnt see why the bank would offer me something and suddenly back out with some lame excuse.

Finally after waiting for weeks I received a reply from the manager that had offered me the original deal. The Ceska Sporitelna Business Support manager said that I could no longer have it as I failed to accept the improved offer. Exuse me Mrs Salzburgerova, you never told us that we needed to accept for the offer to go into effect and secondly you just simply cheat your customers by this completely unproffesional behavious. Make up your mind, or go back to kindergarden or act like a manager. I mean how stupid must Ceska Sporitelna be. Its the same when you offer someone 200 USD on the street. He takes the money and I say, sorry you cant, you had to tell me that you accept my offer of 200 USD. I mean what a load of crap. I have never seen this in an Asian, South american or European bank.l This is complete and utter idiotic behaviour from Ceska Sporitelna, the worst bank in Prague.

Why does Ceska Sporitelna have an Expat Center?

2006-08-01T03:39:00.000+02:00

Ceska Sporitelna has an Expat center for a good reason. Its because almost no one in any of the branches of this shit bank in the Czech Republic speaks any other language then Czech. I mean, Hello!!, Czechs are part of the EU now and a large bank like Ceska Sporitelna had almost no foreign langauge speakers including in the center of Prague where many foreign companies are based as well as many tourists who try to change foreign currency.

This terrible Czech bank known as Ceska Sporitelna opened the expat center with loads of publicity stating that they were so interested in the well being of their foreign clients however this is bullshit. The reason is that otherwise they couldnt deal with foreigners as no one could speak english or german or whatever. The 6 girls or so at the Ceska Sporitelna Expat Center are nothing more then secretairies and translators. You ask them a question by phone or in person and they can never answer your question. They allways need to refer first with "real" account reps.

All of this might be great for a new client of the bank who just arrived in Prague. However Imagine you are a business owner who is turning over millions through this stupid czech bank and you dont speak czech. We had time after time that things went wrong with this Cespa Sporitelna and we wanted to have a proper account rep who we could contact in the future. Offcourse the person had to speak english. We told the mangement of Ceska Sporitelna Erste Bank that we would even switch branch to anywhere in the center. Listen to this: -- After waiting for 9 months and I had to remind them time after time, they came up with some guy. They told me he was hired especially for our company etc. I received his phone nunber and called him as i had some questions. I found out within 10 seconds that the poor guy couldnt speak a word of english. And for that we waited for 9 months. I cant believe that a large international bank (ok well owned by Erste Bank anyway) is unable to find me a proper account rep. I mean those business account reps are normally college graduates and even here they learn english at college so why the hell cant they speak english.I mean at HVB or Raffeisen the doormen even speak english. Compare that with Ceska Sporitelna where the Manager and asistant manager of the main central prague branch on Rytirska both can not speak anything other then Czech. How bad is that? Its hard to believe but it really is the truth about this extremely bad Czech Bank. Ceska Sporitenlna you guys are messed up.

Ceska Sporitelna is a horrible bank

2006-07-28T13:48:00.000+02:00

Ceska Sporitelna has become a nightmare to myself and the rest of our company. Its hard to understand how a Austria owned bank, its owned by Erste Bank, can be so unproffesional and show a complete lack of any form of quality of service. Ceska Sporitelna is a terrible bank and I dont mind announcing it to the world and to Mr. Jack Stack who is the jednatel of this Czech bank.

Ceska Sporitelna must surely be the worst Czech Bank around. What we have experienced with this horrible financial institution in Prague. Their staff are incompitent and rude. They are employees of the worst bank in Prague. I will describe some of the situations and like most outsiders who have not worked with Ceska Sporitelna and their completely incompitent Česká spořitelna Expat Center on Rytířská 29 in Prague 1.

We will start posting the first situations which we encountered with the Worst Czech Bank, Ceska Sporitelna Bank Czech Republic and you will be amazed by the large number of incompetent employees a renowned Czech bank can have and especially one that is owned by Austrian Erste Bank.

Very dissatisfied Česká spořitelna customer!