My Complaint Letter to GTB: A very dissatisfied customer. I'm closing my company account, will limit the use of my GTB personal accounts and will sell off all my GTB shares. GTB is no more what it used to be.

Today I woke up to reality. GTB is no longer the great bank I used in 2009. It took a very harrowing experience to accept this and make the necessary adjustment.

Below is the edited copy of the email letter I sent to their complaints department.

To: complaints@gtbank.com
Subject: A very dissatisfied customer. I'm closing my company account, will limit the use of my GTB personal accounts and will sell off all my remaining GTB shares. GTB is no more what it used to be.

Hello GTB,

Until recently I actively used only GTB accounts: my company account, my savings account, my current account and my domiciliary account. I even, until start of this year,  had over 63% of my stocks investment in GTB shares. I had the same fan loyalty as I have towards [name withheld], and would argue with friends and anyone who said another bank was better.

Now all that loyalty is gone and it took a huge effort on GTB’s part to ensure this. I kept overlooking every ill deed by GTB until GTB began killing my company and making very simple things extremely difficult.

It began with a two months delay in processing a dollar payment into my Dorm account last year, and a very rude treatment by one of the bank staff at my local branch screaming at me to answer all his questions (about everything about my life to how I got the dollar cheque) or forfeit the payment. It was resolved and the branch operations head personally apologized after I escalated the issue.

Then this year, I started my own business and naturally decided to open the company account with GTB. It was more strenuous than even the CAC and FIRS registration combined. It looked like the bank wasn’t interested in having more corporate accounts opened. Then two months ago, I landed a contract with [name withheld] (an international Telecoms company) and was asked to get a bank reference letter as part of the process to get registered as a vendor. I got to GTB and was told that my account wasn’t 6 months old yet and I should wait for 2 more months. The logic made no sense to me; here I was trying to grow my business and fund my corporate account and the bank that keeps sending me mails about how they support SMEs is telling me to tell my clients to hold on till my bank account is 6 months  old before they can do business with me.

And what finally tipped the scales was that last week my account satisfied the 6 months requirement and I went to the bank (Ikoyi 2 branch, Lagos) and I was told that my account has suddenly gotten a restriction. They won’t give me the bank reference letter and I can no longer withdraw from my account. All without any prior notice. I had to contact all my clients that they should not pay into my company account but write a check in my name. Very embarrassing.

I kept my cool and decided to fix the issue. I contacted my legal advisers and got a legally binding affidavit regarding the omission of a letter in my surname in just one field in the CAC 7 document (the reason for the restriction on my company account). I put my ongoing jobs on hold and went to the bank only to be told that a court affirmed legal document is invalid. I was pushed around from the CIS to the commercial banking staff and Ops head of the branch. It was like I had come to claim a lottery winning that the bank was generously giving me and it had to make sure I sweat for it.

I left and am now opening an account with FCMB. GTB is not helping my business or even playing neutral, it’s hindering my business. It’s tough running a business and bootstrapping it. I have to work 7 days a week and almost 18hours everyday (skipping church more than anyone should). Then I have to spend from my life savings and work for weeks before I get paid, and still manage my clients. The last thing I need is a bank that will keep adding to my troubles.

I’m leaving GTB for good. And just wanted to let you guys know that as much as you are doing great with social media, eBanking and great branding, you are beginning to slip on the very core things every customer desire most from his bank.

Regards,

Michael Olafusi