Warning About Robinsons Bank In The Cebu Robinsons Mall

[Mr Lee]

Warning about Robinsons Bank in the Cebu Robinsons mallMy friend opened an account at Robinsons bank earlier this year and my wife and I accompanied him. He was promised his ATM card the next day but they said it was not available so he was never given his ATM card and had to leave the country to go back to his country before getting his card. NEVER put a large sum of money into an account you do not have access to and never leave the country without getting your ATM card. Anyway, he had some Legacy group checks deposited into the account and someone withdrew all his money from the account using the ATM card the bank never gave him. Upon his return to the country, he found the account empty except for p77.So far the bank is just giving him the runaround and has not given him back his money even though he produced his passport showing that he was out of the country during the withdrawals and they have not been able to prove that he was given his card, because they never gave it to him. My wife has called the bank and spoken to a few people there but the people he dealt with are no longer at the bank and the people there now will not give her any information because she is not the account owner. My advice at this point, DO NOT do business with Robinsons bank and Never leave a large amount of money in any account that you do not have the ATM card for.

[Mik]

I use Metrobank for online payment of my VECO and PLDT bills. I deposit only enough to pay those bills each month. Personally, I wouldn't trust the banks here for deposits larger than that.

[Mr Lee]

Mike, I have been doing business with Citibank Savings near the capitol for years and we have deposited pretty large sums of money there when we were in the process of buying our condo, and the people who work there are totally honest IMO. I have even trusted one lady with a large sum of money over night and she did not touch even one centavo. I would highly recommend that bank and her and her boss to anyone who needed a bank and could qualify with the strict requirements needed to open an account there. We have also done business with BPI bank in CDO and also the branch in Cebu diagonally across from the Citibank Savings in the past, and we also put some fairly large amounts in there in the past and never had a centavo missing there either.I think the Robinsons bank incident was unusual and I can only hope that the bank makes good for the money that I believe one of their employees or former employees may have stolen using my friends ATM card that they never gave him.

Edited November 6, 2008 by Mr. Lee

[johnrxx99]

In my opinion the moral here is, if you are an expat only ever use international bank. There is a, how shall I put it, attitude to foreigners here and unless you are a quota or other resident, traders whom ever they are know they can run you around with little come back as eventually you will go away.In this case, my advise is to write a letter to the bank's company secretary setting out the circumstances, copies of the passport extracts, who has been spoken to and allow 21 days for a reply, copy to all senior execs at Robinsons. Then instruct a "good" lawyer to write a follow up assuming the amount is enough to worry about.This could happen at any RP bank. Don't put money in until you can draw it out.

[Mr Lee]

Yes John, it is a lot of money p250,000. I agree with how to handle it but my friend has already gone to the NBI and we will see what happens. I cannot tell him what to do. I just hope the person who stole it goes to jail and my friend gets his money back from the bank. I am sure the ATM machines take pictures and if they keep those for the time involved, someone will get caught. I am happy with Citibank Savings over by the capitol and will keep doing business there.

Edited November 6, 2008 by Mr. Lee

[tropicalwaste]

Not just expats, Aprils uncle got stiffed by a Rural bank that made "cash withdrawals" with fake signatures. Cost them a lot of money and the bank just bull it out.. at the end of the day its probably like most things its corrupt from the clerk to the manager and maybe higher.

[Mr Lee]

Follow up. So far the bank refuses to make good for the money even though my friend tells me that they suspect that it had to be one of their people.This type of thing makes all Filipinos look bad and if you cannot trust a bank with your money, who can you trust. I will follow up again if anything changes, but do not do business with Robinsons bank IMO if they do not take responsibility for their employees actions and since he never got the ATM card and since they would not mail it, it could not have been anything else but an inside job IMO.Again, not all banks are bad and we have used BPI and Citibank Savings and never lost even one centavo, and my wife and I also recommend Mayen at Bank of Commerce in Cebu City, but like with everything else in this world, it only takes one rotten apple in a barrel to ruin the whole barrel. Be careful all.

[tom_shor]

Sorry to hear that but I can't say I am completly surprised by their reaction. If they own up to it then the bank will have to pay him back the money. If they keep putting him off then they are out nothing.

[Mr Lee]

Follow up on this.My friend and neighbor finally got his money back but not from the bank, from the father of the former bank higher up who alledgedly stole the money in the first place. Sad story for all concerned because it seems that the father who is a retired important person in the community (I do not wish to say what) and is a nice person, so I was told, had no idea what his daughter alledgedly did until last week and he wanted to make it good ASAP. There can be no answer as to why this women alledgedly did this, since she comes from a good family and was also well known in the banking industry.

[Old55]

Why would someone risk their money to a Filipino bank? I ask this a yearly visitor not an expat living in Philippines. During my visits I use Citibank ATM