Postbank is currently experiencing repeated major problems. The reason for this is probably the large-scale migration of customer data. TECHBOOK reveals what customers can expect in the worst case.
At the beginning of the year, Postbank began migrating customer data to its parent company, Deutsche Bank, on a large scale. Although Postbank customers were informed about this migration, they shouldn’t really have noticed anything else about it, apart from a few days of maintenance work. But this move was probably the starting signal for a whole wave of problems for some Postbank customers. In the first half of the year alone, Postbank received 583 official complaints – that’s almost as many as in the whole of 2022. And that’s not even counting all the frustrated, sometimes desperate posts on Facebook and X (Twitter).
The problems reported by customers are of such a varied nature that Postbank only speaks of “brief restrictions in online and mobile banking” and not of a central disruption in the IT system. However, if you browse through the various posts and complaints a little, you will easily get the impression that Postbank does not have a particularly good grip on its IT systems. And since the data migration does not take place all at once, the spook is still not over for the customers. Instead, customer data is being transferred to Deutsche Bank in waves, so Postbank customers can still be affected by the problems.
Customers have to reckon with these problems
As already mentioned, there have been problems in many different areas of banking in the recent past. These limitations have occurred so far:
- No access to accounts; also applies to mobile and online banking
- Account suspension without reason
- Supposedly closed accounts (beware of phishing emails!)
- Direct debits cannot be redeemed or are canceled by the IT system without reason
- Deposit and withdrawal of cash not possible
- Problems with inheritance and garnishment matters
- Insufficient availability of customer service on different channels, standard letter as the only response
- Postbank employees who cannot help or (allegedly) are not responsible
- Overall, serious violations of legal regulations
These problems are no longer a nuisance and can quickly have serious consequences for Postbank customers. That’s what they reported daily News by a customer whose landlord gave her notice without notice because the rent had not been received for several months despite a transfer order and a covered account. In other, particularly serious cases, customers have not been able to access their credit for several weeks, which means they are threatened with Schufa entries due to rejected direct debits.
The consumer center of North Rhine-Westphalia even speaks of an innocent spiral of debt that Postbank customers can get into. In principle, Postbank would like to pay for any damage incurred, but the burden on individual customers has long since become unbearable. Confidence in Postbank also plummeted as a result of these failures.
The helplessness and frustration of the customers – even if the hotline is not available – logically unloads on social media. On Postbank’s Facebook page, dissatisfied customers hijack the comment columns of many Postbank posts, including one Contribution on the occasion of the 10-year cooperation between Postbank and Save the Children Germany. The subject of the post is actually the project “LeseOasen – reading promotion in the whole day” and at least one user takes the trouble to make a vague reference to it: “The Postbank seems like a children’s coloring book.”
Another user commented on the “master reader” Anahí from the reading promotion video: “I hope that the little one doesn’t get an account with the Postbank. 
Before the PR department gets to work, it is better to listen to existing customers and offer channels for open communication instead of a hotline where employees are simply not familiar with the systems.” Other customers also share their painful experiences (sometimes more, sometimes less commitment to spelling and punctuation):
Most of the posts oscillate between anger and incredulous desperation, but some try to take the dilemma with humor: “The bank is probably now a library,” speculates a user given the conditions. However, this comparison is flawed, since most libraries have functioning IT systems as standard and some even offer streaming services. The situation of the affected customers is not really funny.
The answers from the social media team are as standardized as they are laconic, which does nothing to stop Postbank customers from being frustrated. Some people can at least wring a laugh of desperation in the form of a smiley.
There isn’t much Postbank customers who are affected by such serious problems can do other than hang in there and complain. The Brandenburg consumer advice center writes: “We then recommend that our customers complain directly to the Deutsche Bank board of directors.”
The Consumer Center NRW According to its own information, the Financial Services Authority (BaFin) has now also turned on the supervisory complaint. “We also advise those affected to sue Postbank for the payment of their account balance – if possible with the help of a lawyer and directly by way of preliminary proceedings. For this purpose, we provide a simple online formulation aid.”
If you are also affected, please write to [email protected] and tell us about your experiences!