Insistently canceling a bank account

Friday morning, I successfully managed to close the bank account that I opened Thursday afternoon.

As you might recall, this bank account that I opened at La Banque Postale came with a confused and overly-friendly bank operator and the minor problem of not being allowed to deposit any money into it for a week. After some soul-searching Thursday night, I figured it would be a better idea to close the whole thing before it was too late and they had already captured my money, and try again with a proper bank.

So first thing Friday morning, quick like a bunny, I scurried into the post office and sat around waiting for my so-helpful-it-hurts incompetent bank man to emerge so I could snatch my papers out from under him before he got a chance to file them away. When it was my turn, he lit up, all excited to see me — little did he know that I was about to break his heart and take my account details elsewhere. We went into his office, and I said, rather timidly in hopes of not hurting his feelings, that I really needed to be able to deposit money immediately, and thus I wanted to cancel the account.

It’s clear that he’s taken this as a personal affront. What do you mean you want to close the account? he says. Don’t you have faith in me? I told you that I’d protect you.

It’s not you, I reply, going for my best commiseration voice. It’s simply the terms of the account; I need to be able to deposit money right away and I can’t wait until next week for it to be open.

But it’s only 5 nights! It’s not a big deal. You’ll be fine until Wednesday or Thursday. I don’t understand; why don’t you trust me?

Listen, I say, switching from kind befuddlement to serious studiousness, this is my own personal situation. I need to close the account. Do you still have the dossier with my papers? Can I just take it back from you and then have the account closed?

With a sigh, he sits down, shuffles through the papers on his desk and finds my folder (sure enough, unfiled as of yet), all the while saying, very hurt, “Je comprends, vous n’avez pas confiance en moi! Je vois, je vois, c’est pas un problème.” (I understand, you don’t trust me! I see, it’s ok, really.) You see, he explains very patiently, this is why I told you not to put any money in when you opened the account, because I knew if you changed your mind, then you wouldn’t be able to get the money out. So see, it’s really very good that you didn’t deposit anything yesterday, because if you had, you wouldn’t have been able to change your mind today! I’ve had Americans do that before, want to change their minds the next day, and that’s why I always advise people to open the account with 0, instead of depositing money immediately. And it was a good idea, wasn’t it?

He writes ANNULÉ across the front of the account form and has me sign beneath it. I ask him to give me back the second copy of my papers – if nothing else, I’ll need the xerox of François’s passport and renting affidavit so I can bring it to a different bank – but he assures me that he doesn’t have them as he had given them back to me the previous day. I was 100% certain that this was not in fact the case. No, he insisted. You have those papers. Remember that nice folder I gave you yesterday, with the flowers on it? Where is that? They’re inside.

I don’t have the folder with me, I explain, but I can assure you that you did not give me back a copy of everything. But if you can’t find them, just give me the dossier with all the originals, and then that will de facto close the account, since you won’t have any of my papers!

Nonononono, he insists. I definitely gave them back to you. Where did you put them? Look, where could they be if I have them? And he goes through a big, exaggerated show of holding up the trash can, looking under the cover of the copy machine, puttering through a few of the many papers scattered across the desk, all, of course, to no avail.

I stare at him and shrug. He pauses for a moment, and then says, upon reflection, You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe I do have your papers! And if you’re right, of course, you’re right, and you should indeed be right. Let’s see. Some more shuffling in a hidden box somewhere and, lo and behold! the other copy of the papers gets magically produced, and he hands them back to be.

Ok. Mission 1 completed: necessary papers procured so I can re-open an account somewhere else. Mission 2, definitely closing this one, and potential Mission 3, getting back all of the papers (i.e., the bank’s copy) so they have no information on me, still uncompleted.

I ask him to give me back the original papers as well, so the account will definitely not be opened, but he says they need the papers in order so that they can close the account. (Don’t ask how this makes sense.) But at this point he’s a bit confused; he’s lost his firm moral standing what with my retraction of confidence in him. I ask if I can just take a quick look at the packet of papers he’s got. He hands them to me, and, very smoothly (if I do say so myself), I remove the xerox of my and François’s passports, all the while assuring him, “I’ll just take these, don’t worry, it’s much easier this way.” Telling him it’s easier makes him complacent. Ok, he says, a bit bewildered. Whatever you say.

So that account is closed, or at least un-openable since they have no official documentation, and I’ve got an appointment with BNP Paribas for Monday morning. Seems I’d gotten my way just by assuring this guy that it was much easier to do things this way. Who can but resist taking the easy way out?

Bizarre Bank Business, round two

Today I remembered why I so badly did not want to close my bank account last year when I left: because I’d have to re-open it were I ever to come back. Now I’m back… and the bank administrative nonsense has begun again.

The problem is that you need an address and a signed lease to open a bank account, so I was waiting until I found an apartment to start the bank process. However, the apartment hunt isn’t going all too well, and I need a bank account to, among other things, get paid (CNRS will only do direct deposit, and only into a French bank account), get a cell phone (they won’t give you a contract and a number without a canceled check), and, if I’m leasing from an actual landlord, then even to rent an apartment (note the circularity!) So what to do? I got my very wonderful friend François (with whom I’m staying, with Kim, in their snazzy house outside of Marseille) to write a letter swearing that I’m lodged at his house, rent free (which is actually true at the moment). This letter, along with a utilities bill and a copy of his passport, when presented to the bank (along with my own passport and assorted bits of information including my monthly income and the number of children I have – note the similarites with my travails the first time around), meant I was deemed an acceptable client to give them my money. I went to La Banque Postale, a bank run by and through the post office, because it was suggested that they might have the lowest fees. When I got there and met with the representative, he immediately decided that we were best friends and, in response to my rather insistent questions about fees, and internet account viewing, and non-French-ATM access, told me not to worry, he’d take care of me: “Ne vous inquiétez pas, mademoiselle. Je vous protège. Si vous avez des problèmes, n’hésitez pas à me demander. Même si à Marseille, moi, je vous protège. Pas de problèmes.” (Don’t worry, mademoiselle. I’ll protect you. If you have any problems, don’t hesitate to ask me. Even in Marseille in general, I’ll protect you. No problem at all.) Well, alright. Opening a bank account is indeed painful, but I need to do it, I’ve already done it once before, and this time, my French is actually good enough that I can understand what the bank person is saying, so it should at least go off smoothly.

Hah.

I’m not getting paid until the end of July, and I need to (a) buy stuff, ya know, like food, for the next month, and (b) pay rent for July if I ever manage to find an apartment. This means I need about 900€, just to be totally safe, for the next month. I have an American bank card that lets me withdraw from European ATMs, but it expires today, so my plan was to get this account open, withdraw 900€ from my American account, deposit it immediately into the newly-opened French one, et voilà! be well on my way to being settled.

My pal the bank man starts filling out my application, first on paper, then by transferring all the same information into a supremely 1990s-looking computer form, all the while stopping and chatting to me about where he was born (Martinique) and how close it is to the US (in the same time zone as the East Coast, and only a two-hour flight to Miami!), that he longs to visit the US so he can travel down Route 66 (ah oui, la route soixante-six!), and that the only English he knows is, “Nice to meet you!” but that all the travel books say you should never say that to any American (duly noted). All at once, watching the bank questionnaire proceedings, I notice a question that asks how much money I want to open the account with. He types 0. I protest that really, I do want to open the account with some money as I want to deposit it right away. No, no, no! he exclaims. Didn’t I tell you that I’d take care of you? It’s much easier to just open the account with nothing in it now, and then deposit money in later. No really, I say, I’d like to deposit some money right now. I’ve got it with me. But no– it’s soooo much easier to deposit it afterwards. Don’t worry, I’ve got it! You can count on me.

We move on, blow through pages more of questions and options that he doesn’t even ask me if I want — at one point, I notice us speeding past the internet vs. paper statements question, so I stop him and say that I want internet access to my account. He obliges, but upon attempting to put in my email address, it throws an error because he’s actually checked off the “receive updates via SMS” box, and, as I don’t have a cell phone (because I don’t have a bank account…), he’s just put in the bank phone number. Unfortunately, the bank phone number, being a land line, can’t receive text messages and thus the computer gives an error saying that the phone number must begin with 06 or 07, the initial digits of all mobiles here. He, however, ignores this message that keeps popping up and continually re-types in the bank’s phone number, regardless of my pleas to simply uncheck the “SMS update” box. After about 5 minutes of me saying exactly the same thing, the SMS box gets unchecked, but at this point it’s unclear if the internet banking is enabled. When I ask about it, he assures me that it’s probably set, but, don’t worry, we can check and take care of it after the account is fully opened.

At this point, another box shows up on the form, asking how much money I’d like to open the account with. As before, he puts in 0; I argue that indeed, I have money that needs to go in; he ignores such arguments and tells me that we can deposit it after I’ve opened the account and to trust him in this, he opened an account for another American just last week. In fact, this box shows up a few more times, and each time I plead with him to enter some amount – even 50 €, look, I honestly have it in my wallet right now! – but he persists.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, we’ve more (or less) successfully navigated all of the questions, I’ve signed several forms, he’s copied all of my paperwork, and the account seems to be open. He informs me that my checks and bank card will be coming in the mail and grudgingly gives me some “only provisional” RIBs (Relevé d’Identité Bancaire – what I need to give out to all these places that need my bank info). When I ask him to do a deposit, however, it seems there’s a teensy tiny problem – the account isn’t exactly open yet; it needs to be processed by the bank so I can’t actually deposit any money until that’s happened. But — well, it’s 4:30 now, and tomorrow’s Friday, but I’ll file it as soon as possible, so it should be ready next week some time, maybe Wednesday or Thursday.

So after all those assurances, I’ve managed to open a bank account, into which I really need to deposit money today, and that’s not even possible to do because the account isn’t open enough. No amounts of suggestions of going back into the account-opening system would cause him to budge, even when I explained the whole 900€ situation. (Note: I’m not actually carrying 900€ around with me; I ended up not withdrawing it from my American account at all because I had nowhere to put it.) He was quite nonchalant about the whole having-gobs-of-money-in-my-pocket-for-several-days situation. Some protector indeed.

I got back home and François expressed great distaste for the Banque Postale and roundly assured me that he would never have an account there because they really don’t have any idea what they’re doing, which quite indeed seemed to be the case. Given these issues, I’m actually going to try to go back tomorrow morning first thing and see if I can head the account off before it’s sent down the opening tubes, and maybe just cancel the whole caboodle and try again at a different bank.

Sigh. And I thought it’d be easier this time around, now that I know how France works.

Un compte bancaire

Today, I managed to open a bank account.

This was round two of the bank saga – I’d gone two days ago and was told to come back with 4 additional documents to prove I had a job, an apartment, and electricity. (When I told the guy at the bank that I didn’t have an electric bill, he very excitedly exclaimed,  “Ooh! Vous êtes trés verte!” I wish. I just pay my landlord directly.)

We kicked off the rendez-vous with probably 20 pages of questions, in which I had to divulge every possible aspect of my life. I don’t remember Bank of America asking whether I had any children or the city of my birth, though I can’t say whether this level of detail was necessary because I’m a foreigner or it’s just that the French really like bureaucracy.

I was transferred to Madame Raffaele Marras, who is in charge of clientele particulars (or maybe particular clients?). (As my parting gesture last time, when the man gave me a business card, I asked if he was the name mentioned there. He looked hurt and informed me that no, Raffaele was a woman’s name. Whoops. Thanks, French, for having feminine names seem masculine to my vulgar and untrained American eyeballs.) Raffaele and I went through all the same questions – interestingly, I was still single, still had no children, and still was employed by CNRS.

Then came the questions of particulars. I’d asked the first man whether the account was free and he’d assured me that it was. However, I’d read their fee booklet and it clearly said there was a monthly fee of 1€50. When I was first transferred to her, I asked Raffaele, just to be sure, whether there was any charge for maintaining the account, and she solidly declared that as long as I didn’t want a bank card or online access or overdraft insurance, it was definitely free. Great!

But at the end of our interview, to quadruple-check, I asked one final time whether there was a charge for the account. At this point, she informed me it was completely free and had a 1€50 monthly charge. Wait. What?

Three different people in the bank told me there was no charge, and all of them, on further questioning, ceded the point that there was this 1€50 fee. For some reason, none of them viewed it as a charge for the account. Once Raffaele had finally owned up to the fee, she kept telling me it was for account maintenance purposes, which apparently are too banal to really count.

This was some real-life proof of linguistic differences that not even a perfect dictionary-based lexicon can remove. I was definitely using the right words – gratuit = free and frais = fee. There’s much more to learning a language than just learning all of its vocabulary. Knowing a word so that you can use it in speech doesn’t just mean you can write down a definition for it. There’s tons of extra information about the sense of a word that native speakers just know: what kinds of contexts the word can be used in, what prepositions it takes, fine shades of meaning differences between synonyms. Knowing all of this information makes the question of lexical storage substantially more complicated than just shoving a dictionary into neuronal connections. This additional information, that can hardly be articulated even by native speakers, needs to be connected to a word’s entry somehow.

I don’t know if the bank personnel’s not calling this a fee was a linguistic or a cultural phenomenon. It was probably a combination of the two: bank people don’t think of these charges as fees because they’re just maintenance charges and thus aren’t a “luxury” fee. As a result, they’ve built up the sense that a “frais” is something like a tax; something you pay in exchange for the right of passage or as a punishment.

This is tangentially related to the big question of whether the language you speak influences how you think. I doubt it did in this case – they just categorized various monetary charges differently than I did and thus the misundertanding stemmed from what amounted to a different understanding of the sense of a given word.