Dear Editor,
I was on a recent bereavement trip to Guyana and had a very unpleasant experience at the Republic Bank located at Vreed-en-Hoop.
My wife has had an account with this bank since she was a teenager and she decided to close it because there are more service charges than interest. She then wrote an authorization, went in to the Guyana Consulate in Toronto and had them notarise the document. They also made copies of her Canadian passport, and signed and stamped it. I went into the bank, provided the passbook and a notarized document and explained to the teller that I would like to have the account closed on behalf of my wife, who was in Canada and could not be there.
I provided ID and after discussion with a senior staff member she told me said the authorization had to be re-written, because it should not be addressed to, “To whom it may concern,” but to the ‘Officer in charge.’ The senior staff member (Hardial) repeated the same nonsense, and said that banks were having many issues with account holders who resided overseas. I said the bank had all the relevant information pertaining to my wife, including her current address, telephone number and copies of her Canadian passport, and I also showed him all the bank statements that had been mailed to my wife over the years and even asked him to telephone the number on file to verify that this was an authentic transaction. Then he came up with a new excuse, saying the signature did not match the one on file. I explained that the file signature had been done more than twenty years ago when she was a teenager and would not have remained the same, but he should note that the signature on the passport matched the signature on the notarised document. He continued to give me a hard time and again I requested to speak to a manager. I was told to sit down and the manager would be with me shortly. I waited for approximately 45 minutes and no one came, so I then left the bank. I am very disappointed in the way I was treated and intend to take this matter further. The funds available in the account are minimal and all I wanted was to close it.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Bisram
Editor’s note
We sent a copy of this letter to Ms Michelle Johnson, Marketing and Commu-nications Manager of Republic Bank Guyana Limited, for any comment she might have wished to make, and received the following response:
“Thank you for sharing the letter you received from Mr Bisram and for allowing us the opportunity to respond.
“The experience outlined in Mr Bisram’s letter and the inconvenience he reports having encountered in his attempt to effect the transaction on his wife’s behalf, are of serious concern to us.
“While we are unable to verify the details of his transaction request, since we do not hold the correspondence to which he refers, we would like to encourage the account holder to contact us at her earliest convenience as we are keen on addressing her request.
“Republic Bank remains committed to customer satisfaction at every interaction. In this regard, we are always grateful for our customers’ feedback, whether favour-able or not, as this enables us to take the steps where necessary, to ensure that our customers are afforded the level and quality of service that support our corporate objectives.”
