Business | Banking

Age gap: 22 going on 110

Bank tells young customer he is over 100 years old

  • By Muby Asger, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 00:00 July 29, 2010
  • XPRESS

century man:
  • Image Credit: Xpress /Abdel-Krim Kallouche
  • Traill Iain Skye Stocker has 110 reasons to feel miffed with Emirates NBD Bank

Dubai: When 22-year-old Traill Iain Skye Stocker called Emirates NBD Bank for a replacement for his Visa debit card, little did he expect to be told by the bank that he was over 100 years old.

On May 19, when Stocker called Emirates NBD requesting a new Visa debit card, he was asked for verification details by the call centre employee. "Once I'd given them my account number and the date of my last transaction, they asked me for my date of birth. It's January 9, 1988. I was told that my information didn't match theirs and that there was nothing they could do until I went to the main branch in Baniyas Square, Deira, and proved my identity."

Later that day, Stocker went to the bank, proved his identity and applied for a new card. Three days later, when there was still no card in the mail, he went to the Emirates NBD branch at Healthcare City, only to be informed that his date of birth on their system showed the year as 1900.

Questions and more...

"How could they possibly assume I am 110 years old? If that was the case, how would I still have a visa for the UAE? How would I still be alive?" he asks.

He then had to fill out another form requesting a change of date to the more realistic 1988. This means there will now be a further delay of another three working days, since each transaction takes between three and five working days to process.

"I was told that the bank had updated their computer system in May and, as a result, a virus was causing the computer to generate random numbers," said Stocker. "If so, why should I have to suffer the consequences?"

Stocker says he's going on annual leave in a few days and needs the Visa card before that.

Jay Zee, a executive, had a similar complaint. Unable to withdraw money from an ATM machine on July 25, she contacted Emirates NBD only to be informed that their system was being updated and her card may have been temporarily disabled. "Yesterday was an emergency and I needed money urgently. When I called them, I was told that the card would be activated within a few days. This is shocking. Aren't banks supposed to inform customers before messing with their accounts?"

No comment was immediately available from Emirates NBD.

Comments (4)

  1. Added 10:10 July 31, 2010

    This bank is making very negative progress in all its procedures since the merger between Emirates Bank and National Bank of Dubai. Before, there was a big delay in issuing new account number and its activation, and now people are facing this type of foolish problems. Bank authorities should take some positive step instead of going backward.

    Anonymous, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  2. Added 13:52 July 29, 2010

    I am personally not surprised, this bank -- Emirates NBD -- takes every effort to put its clients in very bad and unexpected situations. Long gone are the days when NBD, before the merger, was caring for its clients and all that care was trashed after the merger with Emirates Bank. We were banking before with NBD, but after they merged we noticed that we were no longer dealing with the staff we used to. The new guys don’t care at all for customers, they just keep looking at the time, shouting all over the branches, and last thing they notice is so many customers waiting to have their transactions done. Even their call centre is useless. We learnt that if you call after 6pm and choose Arabic language, your call will be diverted to an Egyptian agent in Egypt, and if you choose English then an Indian agent in India (outsourcing) would answer you with a very bad voice quality.

    Anonymous, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  3. Added 08:48 July 29, 2010

    I am personally not surprised, this bank -- Emirates NBD -- takes every effort to put its clients in very bad and unexpected situations. Long gone are the days when NBD, before the merger, was caring for its clients and all that care was trashed after the merger with Emirates Bank. We were banking before with NBD, but after they merged we noticed that we were no longer dealing with the staff we used to. The new guys don’t care at all for customers, they just keep looking at the time, shouting all over the branches, and last thing they notice is so many customers waiting to have their transactions done. Even their call centre is useless. We learnt that if you call after 6pm and choose Arabic language, your call will be diverted to an Egyptian agent in Egypt, and if you choose English then an Indian agent in India (outsourcing) would answer you with a very bad voice quality.

    Anonymous, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  4. Added 08:44 July 29, 2010

    It’s very unfortunate that banks here take things so casually. The customer service people have absolute no understanding of the words ‘customer satisfaction’. I wonder if these banks do monitor the calls to verify if their employees are courteous enough. Secondly, how can they give a lame excuse of a virus changing the numbers in their system? So does it mean, if I had Dh10,000 in my account and due to the virus it became Dh10 and they can’t do anything about it?

    Bharath, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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