Trying to close my bank account with Axa Banque. They are either obfuscating or just ignoring me. Is there a banking Ombudsman I can appeal to
Yes, and no. Complaining against a bank starts a serious process that can lead to a tribunal. So you have to follow the correct steps otherwise your complaint will be thrown out immediately.
You start with a formal request to your conseiller. If no resolution after that you submit a formal reclamation to the bank.
Yours is such a simple issue that I would have thought that would get the resukt.
But if not then you move on to the free mediator service
And then on to a tribunal.
Check whether you have protection juridique with your house insurance,
post deleted as it seems Axa Banque is online… aaargh
no chance of talking face to face (?)
The only time I closed a bank account here was when we crossed the road from CA to La Poste and the latter handled everything, including DDs.
Didn’t have to do a thing personally.
Are you simply taking the money out and putting it in a shoe box or perhaps abroad, otherwise I don’t see the problem.
When I tried to close my Societe Generale account years ago I got no response at all to my letters asking them to close it. Eventually I went in to the branch (I was only here occasionally at that point) and they said that they couldn’t close it while there was money in it (a couple of euros) so I emptied it there and then and the account must have got closed because I never had anymore statements or anything. No confirmation or anything else!
Our Société Générale seems to be very keen on people keeping their accounts open even after they move abroad. The reason they usually give is so the tax office can debit the account if necessary.
I do have direct debit set up for the tax office.
But surely it’s not mandatory? I seem to remember checking the tax site a while ago and they said you could terminate the direct debit arrangement any time.
So presumably one could move abroad and settle any tax bills using a foreign bank card or by doing a transfer from a foreign account? As long as you were still in SEPA.
This was a very long time ago and at the time I was living in the UK with a second home here in France. The certainly ddn’t seem to think I had to keep it pen, just that I was very stupid (or something) for not taking allthe money out before closing it. Very bizarre and it was not long after that there was a big scandal about that particular bank so…
However, I posted what I did in case the same sort of thing applied to the OP - i.e that he needed to withdraw everything for it to close, possibly 
I’m in Australia for the foreseeable future plus if I remember correctly, Axa don’t have branches, just online banking
Regards
Steve Cox -gmail
I have a different bank I use for taxes etc and have never made a single transaction with Axa. I have requested them numerous times to transfer the balance to my main bank in France and they have ignored me
Regards
Steve Cox -gmail
I can understand that. I had done something similar with Societe Generale but they hadn’t done anything. Can you transfer money out yourself since it’s an on-line account?
Have you been through any of their suggested path of complaint ?
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And sorry but missed the online transfer suggestion.
They have closed my online access. I had used it so rarely, I had forgotten that when the English translation of their logon page asked for Surname they actually meant a bank generated 10 digit number. One miss and you are locked out, despite it saying I had 3 misses
Regards
Steve Cox -gmail
Thank you. I wasn’t aware of that and will give it a try
Regards
Steve Cox -gmail
Sorry. I responded to quickly.
They wont call me in Australia (not unreasonable to be honest) and my contact ignores me
Regards
Steve Cox -gmail
I would contact their tech support and try to get them to reactivate it. Prob more likely to help than the bankers
I would use this letter template (in French) and post it recorded delivery (or whatever the Australian equivalent is). It will cost but they are likely to respond to something like this.
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