Aging Years In A Few Days
The past seven days have been really stressful for me. This whole case made me think of whether this system is going back to middle ages or maybe trying to make a small effort to work towards being in line with the expectations, using the latest technology available.
The whole thing started at the beginning of last week, when it became clear I need to send some money to Sweden, asap if possible. Being in finance basically all my adult life comes with benefits as I'm not jumping into the first option, I like to see all my options first, then choose the best, or sometimes the least bad one, if there's no good option available.
Sweden has some strict rules, when it comes to finance, you can't do what you want, you can't march into a shop with a suitcase full of money, so the only solution in this case was a bank transfer.
Being on the blockchain and in crypto since 2016, has taught me a lot and knew what was to come is not going to be easy, but now I have to admit, I was really naive.
On the 9th, I put a big glass of water on the table, took a deep breath and initiated a transfer using the bank's mobile app. Such an act is not a big deal, if you have all the details needed, should take a minute, but obviously nothing goes as smoothly as you want and this is how when I was close to signing the transaction, I got an error message. The app said the date of execution is different from the date of processing. This was shocking because none of the dates were selected by me and at the date of execution the app gave me as soon as possible by default. Having no other option, I started the process again, naively hoping that walking the same path would give me a different result. It didn't.
The next possible option was to call the helpline, which I did. After listening to all the pre-recorded crap they make you to, and waiting for about 5 minutes, I was transferred to a human call center agent and this is when the second shock came. I got a lady who had a speaking problem that I could barely understand what she was saying. I don't know the medical term for that, but trust me, I made huge efforts to try to understand what she's saying, and at the end I ended the call without getting any solution to my problem as we could not understand each other. After this call, I got an automated survey call, which I answered honestly bu telling I'd never recommend the customer service to anyone and that my satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10, where 10 is very good, was ZERO!
This was not revenge at all and I actually felt sorry for the lady, she's not to blame for having that problem, but the person who assigned her the role is. She should not work in this position as I doubt anyone can understand what she's saying. After all this, I had no choice but to make an appointment to the bank, pay them a visit on the 10th and make the transaction the old fashioned way, with pen and paper.
The appointment the next day went ok I thought, but close to the closing hour of the bank, I got a call from the lady, telling me they need more details in order to process my request, so I got another appointment for the 11th. I was there at 9am, happy to get the whole thing over with. After a couple of hours I saw the transaction took place, which meant problem solved on my behalf. This was on Wednesday last week.
Then on Monday, on the 16th, I got a call from the Swedish party who I sent the money, asking me about details as the money was not in their account yet. This was the call I feared to get and there it was. I checked my balance immediately and as the transaction was not cancelled, the only thing I could do was call the bank, but this time I had the number of the lady who took my case.
So I called the lady and after some investigation, I was told the payment order has as execution date the 13th. Wtf would be the right word here and that's exactly what I thought as I signed the order on the 11th and this begs the question what they did with my money for 2 days, why wasn't the transfer made only on the 11th?
At that point, on Monday I knew my money left my account, but did not get to the beneficiary. I asked the lady in her experience, how much time is needed for such a transfer, but she could not give me a straight answer.
So Monday passed, Tuesday passed and I got no news about the money. Good part of Wednesday passed as well, when around 4pm my time, I got the call that the money has finally arrived.
One f_cking week, or SEVEN DAYS, if it's easier for you. That's how long it took to transfer some money from Romania to Sweden. One f_cking week, or SEVEN f_cking DAYS!!!! Honestly I have no words. I only want to know why? Why did I and the other party had to wait one week for the money to reach destination? Why are we paying people to do our banking?
The answer is to play with our money and make life a living hell, as I see no other reason.
At that point I said to my brother, imagine if you have a deadly illness and you need money for surgery or for an urgent treatment, that could save your life and it takes a week to get the money, a week that you don't have.
Knowing we have the technology to transfer any amount anywhere in one minute makes me unbelievably angry and can't accept this situation. It's 2025 and this is the fastest, legal way. One f_cking week.
Who's going to pay me interest for one week, as I could not use my money, someone else did.
Beautiful flowers!!
Yes, these are my flowers and I love them too.
🤩😍
Wow, that’s a hair-raising story! A week for a transfer in 2025, that’s completely unforgivable, and it’s totally reasonable to be frustrated. I mean, come on, everybody’s talking about digitization and how we’ve got to make everything easy...yeah, sure🤣🙈
But don't get too angry about it. It's a waste of energy!
By the way, beautiful flowers!🙃✌️
If someone could give me an explanation to the question WHY it takes one week ... I'd be interested.
We make transactions of 1 minute and this shows it's possible. Then why 7 days?
It is a waste of energy, but how can you not get angry?
I completely agree with you. I've gotten so worked up about things like this in my life, but...if you can't influence or speed something up, then let it go. It's not worth getting worked up about.
Anyway, why do people downvote comments like they did yours? I don't get it.😆🙃✌️
Illiterates looking for attention. Don't worry about it 😎
tense when there is a problem when sending money. the color of the flower plant is very beautiful.
Thanks @mnurhiver.
I hate banks as nothing is easy especially here and why I avoid them wherever possible. 2 days to clear the funds is a joke and then another 5 days to reflect.
Honestly, I was counting with 2 days, maybe 3, but have never thought it could take this long. Two EU countries we are talking about here and not some country that has been kicked out of Swift, but it doesn't matter it seems.
Well you seem to have zero luck with call centres. I hate it when I use them, then you are expected to rate the agent and the service! Fu ck that, you are doing what you are paid to do....read a script and wind people up.
that is a long time for bank transfer, I wonder which one of the institutions was making the interest in their account?
Chill out go find some art and relax
I was thinking the same thig and to those who are reading my posts it may seem like I'm looking for these situations to have an occasion to complain but I'm not.
I just hope I don't have to make an international payment soon.
I feelyour pain LOL, I try to avoid at all costs,
Totally feel you on this, dealing with cross border transfers is such a headache. It's strange how outdated some systems feel, even with all the tech we have today. Glad you’re handling it though
I don't think it's the system that is outdated, it's more like maintaining control.
Me handling it was maybe the easiest part, but it messed up two people's plans and schedule. Me, I was just super stressed as it wasn't pocket money.
I can imagine the stress
When you started to tell your story I never thought it could take a week for a transfer, it is really unbelievable all the movement you had to do and the stress that should be solved a thousand times easier with the technology we have. Can we destroy each other countries, go to the moon but not transfer money at the time? I am so sorry you had to go through this, damn banks.
You're right, we can go to the moon, we can fly from one continent to another the same day and so on, but a bank transfer takes one week.
Tonight I was thinking I should go back to the bank and as them to show me the rout with timestamps. It's a waste of time as they would never show it to me.
I hope things are going to change soon as this is unacceptable.
As I said, imagine if someone is sick and expecting money for surgery or a treatment.
No surprise here, my bank app mess up dates too sometimes, so you need to set the transfer 2 days later, then you need to wait the cut off time, that makes today +next 2 days to get the cut off time so 3 days total, if the cut off day is Friday, you are screwed because Saturday and Sunday banks are closed and don't work, so you go to Monday, at that point a bank transfer takes up to 3 days, that makes 7-8 days total. It's the norm
If you want immediate transfers they are enabling (at least here) fast bank transfer if both banks (sender and receive have it enabled) so the transaction is immediate like here on hive
Gives me a headache just reading this honestly and makes me sad to know I'm not the only one in this situation and that this is considered "normal".
And they say we live in a digital era.
This is why we don't need banks.
Thanks for sharing this. It makes me understand better what they are doing. But still unacceptable.
Yeah, I agree it's bad, I just got used to it and consider it normal, because... You can't really do anything about it, it's just like that, banks know they can do what they want, you don't have any other solution for money transfers...
If I gotta talk about banks, they removed my debit card, sent a new one and surprise that comes with a monthly charge! All the new cards... And I can't change bank because the others are worse
Edit: fun fact, I work with supermarkets and if there is like a promotion with 1 article not working they call even on holidays to fix that, but banks can take Saturday and Sunday off... Just lol
I also have a nice story to tell. My old bank canceled my account and took my money too, because I failed to update my personal details. They failed to notify me, although they had two phone numbers and my email address. I got my money back and they wanted to open a new account for me and I said No Thanks!
You know what's funny? We're basically paying them to do this to us.
I had a similar thing, I ID card was expired and they didn't bother to mail or phone or text, they just left and alert on the app but you could see it only if you open the app! It would have ended up like you otherwise then
That's true, 90% of bank accounts have a monthly fee...
When I went to the bank, the first thing I always do is place my ID on the table as they need to identify and verify you, which is ok. So she checked my details and saw I renewed my ID, so she did an update on my personal data. The funny thing is, they know your email address, phone number, address, yet, when there's a crucial decision to make, they don't notify you.
Let's hope one nice day we can make any transfer anywhere in 2 minutes.
absolutely, they changed my IBAN, i got no notification, only a random pdf in the documents section on the app... i got my work wage paid there, state money for kid too, and they change without warn...i keep getting in mind bad interaction with banks while talking lol
that's true, instant transfers are a good start, not sure how much they are adopted
They probably use everyone's money to invest short term for those 7 days and while there might have been some justification for this 20 years ago, I can see no other reason why they make us wait 5-7 business days for a simple transfer. I hate banks and avoid using them as much as possible. I'm just impressed you were able to get a human being on the phone even though they couldn't speak properly.
I was wondering if I would go to the bank and ask them to show me the route of the money with timestamps, what would they say. Most likely the answer I would get is Not possible as they need to protect ... what they did or whoever did it.
I hate banks too and have thought a lot, before choosing this option and only did it because there was no other.