BNZ Dunedin Central — Local services in South Island

I had two terrible experiences at this branch before I decided to close my account and take my money somewhere else.

The first one is absolutely mind-boggling, and I regret not closing my account then. I logged in to my Internet Banking at home for the first time in order to set it up, only to find out that there were transactions made by some random person BEFORE the date that I had actually opened the account. I called Customer Service and was informed that they had somehow mashed two accounts together and that they were going to have it fixed as soon as they could. It turns out that instead of fixing it, they made it worse by sending my actual transactions to the other person's account, which they had to contact me afterwards in order to authorize the return of that person's money because of the second mind-boggling mistake they had done in a row. The accounts got separated eventually.

Point being, if you don't like the risk of having your money floating around random accounts, you should probably take your money somewhere else.

Now for the second terrible experience. I received a bond check from my previous landlord in the U.S. and tried to deposit it. The Teller said she had to take it to her Manager for approval, because the value was too high (a mere USD 850). The Manager did not approve the deposit. According to the Teller the reason was because my account was too recent and I didn't have enough transactions. I then explained that I had just moved to Dunedin from the U.S. and that there was a possibility of me receiving more checks, and asked if that would be a problem. She then gave me another reason, saying that if they deposited the check and it didn't go through, I wouldn't be able to cover for the damage with the money I had on my account, so they couldn't approve the deposit. She then gave me the option to send the check to a screening, which could take up to 6 weeks, and it would cost me. I said "no, thank you".

The next day I returned to the bank with some documentation: the first page of my old lease agreement (showing the USD 850 bond), the printed email thread with my landlord talking about mailing the check to my Dunedin address, and the attachment to the check that read "rent deposit". I explained the situation to the Greeter, mentioned that I had brought some extra documentation in order to try one more time to deposit this USD 850 check, and that I would like to go through it with the Manager. She said I would have to see the Teller first. I went through the same situation. I then asked if I could speak to the Manager but she said the Manager was busy, even though she had to take the documentation to the Manager, who once again did not approve the deposit. I asked again that if, given my current situation, the Manager could talk to me, take another look at my documentation, and then deposit the check sent to my name in my bank account. The Teller then told me that BNZ is not legally obliged to accept foreign checks. I mentioned that I understood that, but I had my documentation and all it took was for the Manager to speak to me as a Client and maybe approve the deposit, since it was a low value check and I had more than enough documentation proving that it wasn't fake. The Teller than changed her speech and told me that they couldn't override the system. Which I know was not true since this whole story happened because the Manager did not approve the deposit in the first place. She then repeated to me that they were not obliged to accept foreign checks. And since I'm not obliged to be their client either, I had to take my money somewhere else.

I'm still unsure why the Manager wouldn't take 15 minutes of his/her time to go through my documentation with me, but I'm assuming it's because I was not too important of a Client to them. Thank you for reading this review, and I hope it will avoid you headaches. I'm glad that I finally decided to take my money...

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