marcia
6th December 2006, 10:33 PM
Just wanted to put a bit of information on here to try and make things clearer forthose who may try and open a kiwi bank account before getting to NZ.
We printed off the forms and applied for two types of accounts, we filled them in sent certified copies of our passports and about 10 days later got an email saying the accounts had been opened, however we could not transfer funds directly into our account at Kiwibank we had to go via a 'bigger' bank like ASB. We decided against this as we always wanted to know that the money was in an account with our name on it - I'm not saying that it wouldn't have worked or that the fees were too high or anything, just that we were not happy to transfer funds this way.
I thought nothing more about the Kiwi bank accounts - I thought they would just remain as an 'inactive' account and eventually be closed. Lucky for me i didn't throw away the paperwork. A week ago my dad rang and said he had received a letter from Kiwibank saying we were overdrawn on the accounts and if we didn't sort it out we would be put on a blacl-list!!!!!!!!!! I've never been on a black list in my life!!
So i rang them up today and explained our situation. The lady was really helpful and said the 'debt' had been written off, it was account fees as we didn't have the required amounts i nthe accounts to avoid the fees. We would only have problems if we tried to open a kiwibank in the future - she totally understood where I was coming from about the inactive account, and i said perhaps they should make things a little clearer on their website for those migrants trying to open accounts as it wasn't really clear. She said she would pass on my comments to her supervisor - I thought yeah I'm sure!!!
Anyway this evening I got a call from the international department asking me to explain the problems, the guy was very nice apolising for confusing us and said that they would look at making things a little clearing in future to their migrant bankers!!!!! :eek:
So really this is just a word of warning to anyone who does open an account, once you get the paperwork saying it has been opened, if you have chosen an account which incurs fees if the required amount isn't left in - make sure you sort out a transfer or speak to them about it pronto!!
I think Willksen (Nicola) had a similar problem too?!
We printed off the forms and applied for two types of accounts, we filled them in sent certified copies of our passports and about 10 days later got an email saying the accounts had been opened, however we could not transfer funds directly into our account at Kiwibank we had to go via a 'bigger' bank like ASB. We decided against this as we always wanted to know that the money was in an account with our name on it - I'm not saying that it wouldn't have worked or that the fees were too high or anything, just that we were not happy to transfer funds this way.
I thought nothing more about the Kiwi bank accounts - I thought they would just remain as an 'inactive' account and eventually be closed. Lucky for me i didn't throw away the paperwork. A week ago my dad rang and said he had received a letter from Kiwibank saying we were overdrawn on the accounts and if we didn't sort it out we would be put on a blacl-list!!!!!!!!!! I've never been on a black list in my life!!
So i rang them up today and explained our situation. The lady was really helpful and said the 'debt' had been written off, it was account fees as we didn't have the required amounts i nthe accounts to avoid the fees. We would only have problems if we tried to open a kiwibank in the future - she totally understood where I was coming from about the inactive account, and i said perhaps they should make things a little clearer on their website for those migrants trying to open accounts as it wasn't really clear. She said she would pass on my comments to her supervisor - I thought yeah I'm sure!!!
Anyway this evening I got a call from the international department asking me to explain the problems, the guy was very nice apolising for confusing us and said that they would look at making things a little clearing in future to their migrant bankers!!!!! :eek:
So really this is just a word of warning to anyone who does open an account, once you get the paperwork saying it has been opened, if you have chosen an account which incurs fees if the required amount isn't left in - make sure you sort out a transfer or speak to them about it pronto!!
I think Willksen (Nicola) had a similar problem too?!