Firstly, this is absolutely the first negative review I write online ever on any business in my 33 adult working years. My nature is to walk away if I face issues or bad service and let the natural process in the business world take its course, in fact; when you see all my reviews, you will notice that I write only good reviews for businesses who excel and walk away quietly when I have a bad experience, but in this case, I was stretched beyond my limits & ADCB caused us huge losses.
I’ve been in business for 30 years. Never had issues with any bank and if I did, we always managed to communicate and solve it professionally and respectfully, clean track record so to speak. Out of the blue ADCB (Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank) decided to block/freeze my account with no explanation whatsoever and zero communication. For SME businesses, this is extremely damaging & devastating, especially in the current post-Covid tough times that we are all experiencing where the cash flow is low as it is.
I called my account manager, the only response is got from him: “I am in India on holiday, can’t help you. Contact my colleague Arif”. I called Arif, who answered quite literally only the first time and said, I shall check and get back to you. Followed up with him for any response: -
At least 30 to 40 calls, he never answered my phone calls.
I called the bank customer service numerous times, no one is able to help, they all refer me back to Arif, who never return our cry for some sort of clear communication on what’s going on.
After few days I finally managed to get hold of their manager’s number thinking someone surely in the managerial position will care more about the bank clients when I called him, and I started explaining, he suddenly cut me off in less than a minute of the phone saying he is on holiday & asked me to call Arif again & hung up the phone, the call didn’t last more than a minute.
I sent nearly 20 to 30 emails to Arif, customer service, the original account manager who is on holiday with no response whatsoever.
Surprisingly after at least 100 trials to reach Arif, I sent one last message stating that I will complain to the central bank and take this issue publicly, he finally decided to answer with one line: - “your case is with the higher management”. That is the only explanation and response I got from him! Believe it or not, I have no clue what is the case, no one explained to me what did we do wrong that it became a case & our account is blocked!!
I am all about following the law, and if ADCB needs to do any due diligence or if the bank suspects any suspicious transactions, I am more than happy to cooperate and furnish whatever details they might require! isn’t the right approach is to communicate the process clearly with the client explaining what the issue is & why the account is blocked?! Isn’t the professional approach to ask the client to provide evidence, documentation, trade license, etc. so we can clear the issue and move forward rather than act unjustly and with a total lack of transparency?
To date, we are in the dark and these funds are used for business transactions! ADCB (Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank) decided to freeze our account without explanation, without communication, and decided to ignore our 100 calls, emails, and messages. I still can’t believe this is actually happening!
The purpose of this review is 1. To warn investors so they don’t fall into the same trap as me, it’s a very painful nightmare so please be wary and 2. I am still hoping that someone, anyone professional from the management will finally contact us to explain what is going on! What’s the wrong thing we have done! What is our crime!