FOLLOWING THE ARTICLE PUBLISHED YESTERDAY IN BURSA Customer: "The bank apologized, but provided no justification"

Emilia Olescu (translated by Cosmin Ghidoveanu)
English Section / 19 mai 2017

Customer: "The bank apologized, but provided no justification"

BCR yesterday apologized to one of its customers, after BURSA reported that their performing loan with no arrears is registered with the Cadastre Office as having been assigned to a company headquartered in Luxemburg.

The bank's excuses were sent both by phone, as well as in writing, by a decision making factor in the bank, according to the customer: "I was called from the bank, from the main headquarters, about the loan which I found was assigned. I was told a mistake was made and they apologized. They also told me they would fix the situation and that they would also fix the records with the Cadastre. I insisted that they tell me what the mistake was, but they refused to do so. It was decided that they would let me know once the issue was resolved".

The BURSA newspaper wrote yesterday that the loan without overdue repayments of the customer in question was assigned by BCR to Tonescu Finance, according to a statement issued by the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity (OCPI).

On Wednesday, the debtor told us: "I am on time with all my payments and my loan has never been overdue, since 2008 when I took it out. I have always paid it at the same desk. I even checked today (ed. note: Wednesday) with the head of the subsidiary where I took the loan from and they confirmed that I was on time with the payments".

According to the debtor, the bank officials first told the customer that they didn't know anything about the issue: "The head of the branch, who says it was impossible for my loan to have been assigned, sent an email to three regional directors from Timişoara and said that nobody knew anything. On the other hand, at the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity (OCPI) I have a full record, where this assignment is also mentioned. I even saw an entire table of individuals whose loans were sold. I don't know the status of their loans, but as far as I am concerned I can definitely tell you that I have no overdue loans".

The assignment operation was registered with the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity (OCPI), according to the OCPI confirmation, obtained by the BURSA newspaper. As a matter of fact, it is the OCPI which notified the customer about the assignment of the loan, as the borrower received no such notification from the bank on that matter, on any of the communication in writing, online or by phone, according to the BCR customer.

Emergency Ordinance 52/2016 concerning loan agreements offered to consumers for immovable assets sets the obligation of the assignor (specifically BCR) to inform the consumer concerning the assignment of the loan agreement and the receivables resulting from it within ten calendar days from the conclusion of the assignment agreement, through a certified letter with acknowledgement of receipt.

The representatives of BCR yesterday told us, that the bank did not assign "performing individual loans": "BCR never assigned performing loans pertaining to the individuals. At most it may be a matter of a person connected to a corporate non-performing loan".

According to the existing indications, Tonescu Finance of Luxemburg bought several loans from BCR and which has as its proxy in Romania the company Asset Portfolio Servicing România SRL, part of a group in the Czech Republic. The sole shareholder of Asset Portfolio Servicing SRL is APS Holding AS, which acquired significant portfolios of non-performing loans from the Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR).

On the Facebook page of the Group of customers with CHF loans, several customers are complaining about the fact that their loans, which were also not overdue, were sold to third have parties.

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