S3E4 Why am I suing my bank

We all make mistakes. The real question is what we choose to do afterward. Will we use those mistakes as opportunities to grow, or will we try to defend our wrongdoing?

To judge a process, look at the outcome. Don’t let people distract or confuse you with the details of the process itself.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Life Workshop, where we discuss the forgotten basic, or I better say I discuss the forgotten basics today. I'm gonna be doing this podcast by myself today, and it is in regards to, as you know, about uh from the tropic, I'm suing my bank, but why am I doing that? Um, I some time ago I ended up buying a house in Dubai, and then I have been making some transactions, um, you know, basically to for the purchased house. And this has been going on for the past three years, and I have made six payments to the same bank. And then for the seventh time, when I wanted to do the same thing, they started asking some extra questions that it just didn't make sense. To be honest, the first six times again I explained it that this is gonna go on for six years, I'm gonna be paying the same amount every year twice, and you know, it can be somehow, you know, not to ask the same question. But it was not possible. So, anyways, the seventh they started asking some other, you know, some silly questions, and they were concerned about me being frauded, which when they called me, I said, you know what? No, I am not being frauded. I have been sending money to these people and it is legit. Then the question was, have you seen the house getting built? I said, Well, yes, on Google Maps, you know, I have checked, and it is it is the government of Dubai who is the construction company and they are more than reliable. Then who was your relator? I said, Why do you want to buy a house from them? No, just to make sure. I said, it just doesn't make sense. But yet I went ahead and gave the name of the relator. Then the question was again, have you been threatened? I said, no, I have not been threatened. And this uh basically the whole conversation getting recorded. You can be assured that even if I get scammed or something, you know what, I'm okay with that. It's not the bank's responsibility, thank for your concern. So, anyway, after all this, the guy said, you know what, okay, I'm okay. I'm gonna release the money, which is basically my own money that is gonna be released to an exchange office, which is which their office, uh head office is in London, England. And then that would they would uh uh exchange it to uh United Arab Emirates uh Diraham and send it to them. But this didn't happen, didn't happen. And the day after it got I got another call, this time another lady is calling. I said, Why are you calling me? And I was in a rush. I had told them that this is um uh I'm running short of time. This money should be sent there on time, otherwise, there are penalties, and you know, it just doesn't, it should not happen. But no, she calls that, you know, but it's for your own security. I said, for my own security, anyways. So what's the question? The question is, how did you get this money to this account? I said, seriously, don't you see you have access to my bank account? What do you see there? Then she said, Well, there was a check deposited. I said, so whose check was that? Yourself. I said, from where was it? Another bank. I said, so make a random guess. What did I do? Well, probably transferred money from your other account in the other bank to this one. I said, Yes, you got that right. So, what's the question? Well, why didn't you send it to that bank? I said, I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I said, seriously, I have been sending that through you guys for the past three years, six times. I thought it's easier to do the same. And then her next question was, how did you get that money into other bank? I said, seriously? I said, you know what? I stole the money. I robbed that bank, I frauded them. What does it have to do with you? Are you trying to save them? And if you're you're concerned, you should call the police, not me. You have the money in your possession, send the damn money. And then, of course, this had taken, I have I made the story a little bit short. You know, they had asked a lot of other questions prior to this, and it became really frustrating. I said, you know what? I'm really disappointed. You know, I would like to make a formal complaint. And then on top of that, she asked that, no, she would like to have my ES statement from the other bank. I said, Why do you need my ES statement? You have the money, the check has been cashed, and there is a five-day hold that has gone by, and you have the money. But no, she wanted my ES statement. I said, okay. I even provided the ES statement the day after. But yet the money was not sent. And then two days after, I'm talking two business days, I get a call from somebody who basically was addressing the complaint. And they said, What is going on? Why are they asking so many unrelated questions? Can they even ask me about my ES statement from the other bank? What does it have to do with you guys? And then he kind of defended whatever the staff had done. Which I found it very kind of unusual and disappointed. I was really quite disappointed. And then I said, so what is the next process? Are you gonna send this money or what? What am I going? I'm running short of time. And then, anyway, he said that he will check into it and get back to me the day after. And then the day after he calls me and he says that you know what, unfortunately, one week has passed, and because of that, the whole transaction has been canceled. I said, Are you serious? I'm in a hurry. I want to send this money, but no, so you can start all over. I said, Is that your recommendation? For me to start all over, go to the same process, which most likely is going to happen to the same result. Anyway, it was a very stressful because I, you know, time and you know, I had I made this relatively short, but you know, and I was really disappointed because I have had some other dealing with the bank with some other banks, that it was very frustrating. So, what I did, I said, you know what, I'm gonna sue you guys, and I believe that you may not believe me, uh, but I have done this in the past. And uh hopefully it will be a lesson. What I did the day after that, I went to another bank that I had. Anyway, the good news was that I had some money sitting there, it was a bigger amount, and I didn't have to transfer the money because that wouldn't work. You know, it would be a five day's work. So I sent the money through them, and believe it or not, it took 25 minutes. The transaction was done. The same day the money was sent. I got an email in the middle of the night because it was the morning on the other side, saying that they had received the money, the exchange office they said they received money, and they released the money to the government of Dubai, which the money was supposed to go. So it was done that way. But when I asked that, you know, can you explain? I'm really concerned about this. You know, this is not this is not how it should be. So they sent me a letter, which I will try to find it and you know, make a copy of it, you know, to have it attached to this uh video, that it was written really well, two-page, very professionally written, meaning and answering nothing, absolutely nothing, saying nothing, but it was written really well. You should have a PhD to write so many sentences and say absolutely nothing. It was just amazing. Anyways, so this is what happened, and because of that, I said no, I'm gonna do this because I'm gonna sue you, because really should you know be held accountable. And one thing that really annoyed me the most is just that they didn't take any responsibility and they kept you know supporting what the staff had done. And they kept asking, why do you send the money to Dubai? Which I had answered several times. I'm sending it because I purchased this house. And then they just kept asking the same, which I told the guy, I said, if you're asking for me to provide you with a different answer, that's saying I'm sending this to a terrorist organization in Dubai, to Al-Qaeda or something, I'm not gonna give you that answer. I'm not that stupid. If you have that concern, you should send RCMP to my daughter. It was a very, anyway, frustrating deal. Again, if somebody just listens to this may think that, okay, nothing happened, you could send your money, so why? The issue is not that, the issue is them making a mistake, not taking any responsibility, me going through a stress over one week and not being sure that if the money gets spent or not, which at the end it didn't, and I could have been, you know, penalized uh for different reasons, because this was the contract that I had, you know, with the seller, basically. But anyway, so this is what happened. But I should maybe explain that I have had some other previous experiences with the banks. Um, it's not just with the banks, to be honest, it's with some of the organizations that are bigger, and they do whatever they want to, and they just they think that they can get away with it. For example, another example was several years ago when I purchased my business building, um, and I needed money. And I asked for a line of credit, and then when I asked for the line of credit against another thing that I had, the guy from the bank, and I had two options very clearly, and then uh one of the guys from the bank that came, he overpromised and definitely underdelivered. And I was very clear with him too that look, I'm in a hurry. Can you do this within two months? He said, Oh yeah, yeah, no worries, you know, it will be done very quick. I have done this several times and easy. And because they had offered me a better deal than the other bank, the other guy, I should have said that no, it will might take a bit more, we will do our best, but you know, it might take a bit longer. But anyway, so they offered me a better deal. I said, okay. But when the process started, they started asking so many questions. They needed so many documents, and the process took more than I think four or five months, which by this time I needed money and I was in debt, which I had to actually tell some of the contractors, which I was basically using the money to pay them. I had to say that, you know, unfortunately, I don't have that money because I was supposed to get it. Of course, they understood and they were pretty good. In reality, they couldn't do much anything. They you can't get blood out of the storm. So that was the situation. But it took a long time to get that. So I made a complaint again about that one, but really they did not take it that seriously. Then I said, you know what? I'm gonna make a formal complaint. So I have done this in the past. And uh, to make the story short, I wanted to make a formal complaint to somebody, you know, further uh higher up, but uh they accepted and you know, they waived some of the costs, they reimbursed me for some of stuff, which became about $2,500, which was, I said, you know what, as long as you learn a lesson. Uh of course, when I'm talking about this, maybe when you guys are listening, you may think that, you know what, oh my God, he's a difficult person to deal with. To be honest, no, that's not the case. Uh I have had a lot of dealing with different contractors, with um lots of different people, and most of the time they have been very good. Most of the time they have become friends. At any time, if I need their services, you know, they would be more than happy, you know, to do that. And they have done it. But I'm talking about a few bad cases that it has happened. But unfortunately, those dealings have normally been with the bigger companies, not the small guys. And I think one of the reasons is that the staff or the rule, they think that they can get away with it. I think that has been the reason. The small guys normally, uh, to in my experience, you know, they have been more cooperative and they understand where you're coming from. And it has been actually most of the time, the dealings have been more pleasant than anything else. And but anyway, so this bank, it was another scenario, another one more case that I had was again, years ago, I had to uh the bank randomly called me. There was this lady who called me from the bank. And then when she called, she said that a mortgage that I was paying years ago for a house that I had, that they said one of them has not gone through, which I couldn't understand. Anyway, she didn't explain it very well. I was uh at work, I was busy. I said, What shall I do? She said that they would have to deduct that from my account at the time that there was money there, a little enough for that. Which I said, okay, but you know, I would like to know what happened. So she uh debited my account and got the problem solved. But then afterwards I called her back that would you uh please you know, give me a call and tell me what happened. I don't know, maybe I'm paying you know twice, you know, uh two mortgages, you know, in some uh for one month. But she didn't call me back. Then a week passed, I called her for the second time. Again, did not call me back. Then the third time, I have a general rule that I will make two phone calls, then the third time I will just count it for them. I sent her an email. I said, this is the third time that I'm sending you, you know, I'm leaving you a message. And if you do not respond after this, I will charge you for my time. And I told her how much is my hourly rate. I said, the same way that you get paid for not doing your job, I have to get paid for my time. And again, she did not respond. So, what did I do? After that, I sent an email to her. I found out who her boss was and I calculated the hours that I had spent on that for typing the email and everything. And then I sent that to them. When I sent that, then she picked up the phone and called me. I said, Why should it take you so long to call me back? And this time, this process didn't happen on every day because I know sometimes when I talk about this, some people think that, oh, do you think you're special? They want you want a quick answer? No. I gave her one week and then another week and then another two weeks. What shall I do? But she was not calling back. And to be honest, the first time when she called me, she was a kind of more of a bully, you know, kind of uh she came across a bit wrong, which I didn't appreciate that. I think she wanted just to scare me somehow to make the resolve the issue, which anyway. I I said, okay, you can go, you know, debit my account. But anyway, by this time, and then she says that, you know what, if you want, you can come to my office, the lady after I sent that email, that uh, and then I can explain that to you. I said, you know what, I can definitely come to your office, but for that, I will charge you extra for my time, for my traveling time too. Probably it would be cheaper if you come to my office. And if the explanation, because she started to explain something to me, I said, if the explanation, this is what you have, to be honest, it's not satisfying. And anyway, so at the end, it took a bit extra time. There was uh then another lady, which I believe her was her boss. She went through some of the stuff and anyway, explained, sent some of the information, which made absolute sense that what had happened. I didn't know that then bank gives you a mortgage, really, they are getting it from somebody else. And anyway, I have forgotten how the whole damn thing worked. But the moral of the story is this that you know, sometimes I have seen that, especially with some you know, bigger companies, and it doesn't matter who, you know, um, they think that they can get away with the stuff. And uh I do this normally. So I have these principles that I have said in some other podcasts. I say I don't kiss ass because I need to, I don't kick ass because I can, I do it because it's right. So any of these things that I have done essentially has been because I believe that it's a right thing to do. I believe, I mean, it's not just what I believe. They say change happens for one of these four main reasons. One is punishment, one is reward, the other one is social norm, which is the most common, and the other one is education. And really, I tried all of those avenues. I tried to uh, you know, very reasonable, be reasonable and ask, you know, tell me what's going on. But unfortunately, that doesn't work. So, because of that, I had to resort to the last, you know, option which I had, let's call it punishment, you know, that I want to make sure that I hold them responsible. So when I say in this process, the people who are doing it often they are very good people, but they perform terribly, obviously. And I'm not sure where it comes from. It is because they think they are in a position of power, I'm not making that call. There can be a lot of different reasons. All I know, they should do a job that they didn't do, and they think their time should get paid. My time should not, and they can waste my time. I understand mistakes happen. We all make mistakes, but if it is ignorance that happens frequently, if you don't accept, you know, to come and say that, oh, come clean, you know what? I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I would be just fine with that. Honestly, you know, you would. I would be absolutely fine with that. But they never did that. It was every time they tried to cover their back, and you know, they simply ignored what I, you know, my concern. And that was the reason. That has been the reason that every time you know I have gone through this process. And when I say this, I should I'm gonna now, you know, turn the table and myself, again, I'm a physical therapist by profession, I own my own practice, and um, it has happened that uh we have made mistakes. Uh, I have had one case, for example, that one client was waiting for too long. And actually, he wrote us a negative review. If somebody is interested, they can go and see my response to it. Uh and if you don't know where I work, it is called Alpha Center, and alphacenter.ca is the website. You can check that the reviews. We have really good reviews for the most part, but we have made mistakes too, for sure. And you know, that was, and to be honest, I went and apologized, you know, that I'm sorry, this is not what our normal practice is. And to be honest, I would be offended too. You know, if somebody keeps me waiting and wastes my time, uh, I would do the same thing. But I took responsibility. We have had some other negative reviews over time, you know, two more that I do remember, and I took responsibility for it. And I actually called, for example, for both of them, actually, uh I called the person and apologized for the mistake was from us. And believe it or not, those both exactly they remove the reviews because of that, you will not see them if you go, you know, to check other reviews. So we make, we all make mistakes, but um it is just that what you do with it. Are you gonna be accountable, accept the accountability, or are you gonna do something to make it better? And sometimes those um complaints and those kinds of things, to be honest, are a very good thing for all of us. For myself, I can say for sure. Sometimes we lose track, you know. We think that you know we can get away with the stuff just we don't pay attention that what's happening to the other party. For myself, it has happened, and then people have brought up their concern to be honest, it has worked towards in my favor that I think I have become a better person. And uh, that is why if you go and check our reviews now, you will see they're really amazing because we really do a good job. We uh we do our best. Uh, does it happen that people maybe, for example, they have to sit for a bit? Yes, but not that much, and we do our best, and if something really happens, you know, completely out of our control, then we can't do much about that. And I'm just fine with that. But again, it becomes very annoying when you see the other party doesn't care. They don't take responsibility, they think they can get away with it. I don't know. I I'm not gonna now elaborate that why the reasoning is, but you know, when I don't see a uh a change, they don't accept it, and they try to brush you off, then you know, I said then I will take it further. And I have heard this thing too. So, do you think by doing this you will just change the whole bank system? You know what? The answer is no. I just do what is right to the best abilities that I have. What's gonna happen next? I don't know. Even with this bank that I'm Talking about that they have been their customer for 26 years or 27 years from the very inception of the bank almost that they started. Um, even with this one, we are gonna go to court. Do I know what the outcome is gonna be? I don't know. I have hired a lawyer, I have spent money on that, I'm absolutely fine with it. Am I gonna recoup my money? Am I gonna win? Am I gonna lose? I have no idea. And to be honest, I'm not too worried about that. The very main reason that I do this, because I think it's the right thing to do. And somebody might prove me wrong, but that's I think that's a different thing. As far as I believe I'm doing the right thing to this state, I believe I'm doing the right thing. I encourage people to do this, you know, that others to do the same. If we do hold people responsible and accountable for their wrongdoings, uh, we may not run into this kind of things as much. The same way that myself, I have made mistakes, people have told me, and I have fixed most of them. And right now I have don't have too many wrongdoings anymore. I'm kidding. Again, I will make mistakes, but and I would be more than happy that you know, if somebody noticed that to bring it up. You know, that's one of the best ways. That is how we improve. Um, but anyway, so this is the gist of it. I'm doing it because it's the right thing. And I have said it in the past too normally when I do something, I'm really not too worried about the consequences. The consequences, we might guess them within one generation, two generations or something, but we will never know the out with the other consequence that's gonna happen. So I'm never ever, I'm not, I would say never ever, but most of the time I do not worry about the consequences, especially if the immediate consequences are not gonna be catastrophic. Um, if it's not that, I take the hit, I'm absolutely fine. So am I gonna win or not? I don't know. I will update you uh once you know the issue has been resolved. And uh again, I just do the right thing and again I encourage everybody to do that. And uh if somebody sees again personally, you know, as or professionally, they make mistakes, they believe that, please bring it up. If the person doesn't take accountability, if they don't have a good reasoning to explain that and they continue doing the same, then I would say punishment potentially has the place for it. And that I would not have been doing that, I would not have taken that course, you know, to take them to court or be that harsh or those kind of things. I would not have done that if they had really accepted and they would say, okay, we will check into it to find out what the problems and what the solution is. Anyway, I hope uh you guys find this, you know, logical and not emotional. And uh, I have had a lot of people that they actually have been uh questioning me that you know it's the wrong thing to do. I don't think so. I think it's a very actually honorable thing that I'm doing, and I'm very proud of what I'm doing. I think it's the right thing, and I hope that more people do the same thing towards anybody who intentionally makes mistakes and things can get away with it. If we do these kinds of things, people will be a bit more accountable for their actions and they would see that, and it's good. Again, it's it's good, you know, people that would realize that if, for example, somebody comes and complains to them, if really they make sense. I'm not saying necessarily every complaint is a legitimate thing, and you know, we should act on it, not at all. But if we realize that we have made a mistake, then then there is an issue. And one of the arguments that I have with this bank is because I have heard again this one, some people they said, but it is the rules and regulations, you know, but or the rule, why the other bank did it within one day, you know. I don't accept that. No, the other bank did in one day. The same bank that they had, they didn't do it four months prior. I had sent money through them, which was sent. Again, it was a little bit slow, but it happened. But the seventh time, what happened? Which actually, when I was speaking with the guy that I raised my company, I said, Did your rule change within the past four months? Because four months ago I did the exact same thing and it went through. What happened? And one of the things that he said, he said, if you want to, I can send you uh the rules and regulation around this, and you can read it for yourself. I said, uh-uh-uh, you're not gonna do that to me. I said, I'm not responsible for finding your flaws. You're responsible to find your flaws and you go fix them. All I know is this. Up to four months ago, I did this, the same process, it worked. Four months after, after it has been done for six times over three years, all of a sudden things change. It is your response to find out. And normally I say this: I'm a very practical, I take pride in this to be very practical and functional. And what do I mean? Again, I say I'm a physical therapist. You come to me with your knee problem and make your pain in your knee worse. And then you ask me what happened. Then if I go give you the anatomy, the physiology, the biomechanic, yes, I can make shit up, you know, or say stuff that you don't know. If you're not in this field, you would not know. Why should you know? Then you can say, I don't care about all that. You made my knee worse. That's all it happened. So, if in that case, most likely I would be a bad physio. And sometimes even when I have had patients that, for example, I do something, they want really a lot of explanation. I say, look, you want to get better, I make you better. Do not challenge me on the how part of it. I explain some part of it, don't take me wrong. But if somebody, but this can do this, you know what? Let's not go into details as much. You know, you want the reality, you want to get better, I make you better, and it happens. Again, if anybody has any you know question about that one, you can go check my reviews. You know, I do a pretty good job, I suppose. I mean, I do. And then anyway, so at the end of the day, again, when sometimes it's like politicians or anybody else, in order to confuse the person, they go into details. When they know that I don't know your banking system, yes, you can confuse me. I don't care about that. What I care about, it took one week, you did not transfer my money. I went to another bank, within one day, they transferred it. That's all I know. Then most likely, not 100%, but most likely, you don't do your job. There's something wrong with you, you go figure out what's the problem with you. It's not my responsibility. Anyway, I hope that you find this um type of argument that I make, you know, reasonable. And uh I would be more than happy actually to hear that what you have to say. That do you think, is this the right thing that I did? Or maybe I should let them get away with it. And what would happen if we all do the same thing that I do, not just towards the bank, not just towards others, but others do it towards us. What will happen? Because when I'm saying this, I would be more than happy to see if somebody has any complaint against me, if I make a mistake, to bring it up. Not to bring it up with the from the very get-go, I'm gonna fight you or something. No, no, no. To bring it up and see if I take responsibility. If not, then definitely you should take it to the next level. I really believe that. And that way we will again, I think we will end up with a much better society. And the number of the conflicts and this kind of poor customer service that there are good people in the same bank, the same people that they provide bad customer service, which you and I can be one of them, often they're good people, but they provide, do bad behaviors, they perform bad behaviors, which is a kind of stemming from I don't know, environment. I'm again, I don't want to get into that part of it, but for whatever reason, there are good people doing bad jobs. But by doing this, hopefully, we will encourage people, and they kind of it needs be by force to do a better job. Anyway, hope that you enjoyed this and you know find it educational. Again, I would love to hear uh you know more, you know, to see what you guys think about this. If you can make it as a comment, that would be awesome. And again, at the end of the day, life is simple. We make it complicated. Thank you all. Bye.