… continuing the story.
We cannot open your N26 account . . . We are currently unable to give you more information on this subject for legal reasons and our Customer Service will not be able to assist you further.
This didn’t deter me from contacting their chat to obtain an explanation. According to the person on the chat, the app had geolocalized me during the identity verification step (see The N26 nightmare begins (part 1)). Now, I was in Germany at that time – visiting my wife – not at my home address, in France! This mismatch (between the geolocalization and my French address) was the culprit. She offered to “reinitialize” the app and I could restart the registration process, from France, of course! This should take no more than few days and I should be back before I could say Jack Robinson – or before my wife’s name’s day for that matter.
This was February 14. The day after, I was already in France, anxious to be done with this nightmare. Opening a bank account online with N26, take three, action!
Third time lucky?
L. (the person on the chat; see The N26 nightmare begins (part 1)) had mentioned a little delay for the App to be “reinitialized”, something like 3 days. On February 17, I throw myself down in front of my phone. Unfortunately, the App was not responding. I contacted the N26 chat twice, but neither C. nor T. was of any help. Later that evening (at 10:29 pm to be accurate), I received an email from L.:
Good evening Alexandre,
I am coming back to you following our meeting via livechat. I inform you that the reset request has been taken into account, therefore, your situation is now unblocked. You can register with N26 again!
We are happy to welcome you among us.
Wishing you an excellent evening,
Regards,
L.
Actually, I saw the email only the following morning. I tried to register with N26 – again – but the App was obviously stuck, with nothing else on the display but an endless spinning circle. I replied to L.’s email, expressing my gratitude for her help, and mentioned the App issue. Naïvely, I told her The App has been stuck for half an hour, but I guess that’s normal.
and that, if needed, I would contact the chat. February 18, 1:54 pm.
Patience is not only the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.Joyce Meyer
This time, I failed to do so! I just couldn’t control myself and I used the chat again. While F. was a little more understanding than the previous two N26 representatives (i.e. C. and R.), he was not as nice as L., though. Anyway, I explained to him the whole story again, i.e. about the App reset, and that the latter was blocked; the circle had been spinning for hours now.
Two interlocutors
At 2:45 pm, I was still on the chat with F. when I received an email from N26. I erroneously thought it was from him. When I was done with the chat, I checked it. The App issue was probably just an updating problem; the procedure to update it was as follow:
step 1: dissociate the device
step 2: uninstall the application
step 3: turn off the device for 2 minutes to clear background data
step 4: turn the device back on and reinstall the application
step 5: re-pair the device/application
I tried to follow the procedure, except for step 1 that I didn’t even understand. Now, I assume the correct translation should be “to unpair” (instead of “to dissociate”), but back then both my phone and Android were completely new to me (see A smartphone), and I had no idea what to dissociate (“dissocier” in French) the device means. Needless to say, I also skipped the last step.
As I said, I thought the aforementioned email was from F.; it was not. It was from L. and, as alluded above, I should have been a little more patient. This would have saved me all the troubles… Spoiler: As suggested by the title of this post (i.e. part 2), the nightmare was far from being over.
It did not work! The App kept showing the same turning circle – endlessly – and the Continue button remained greyed out. Surprisingly, I also noticed that the App would not go through the “Verify your identity” step, as if it would remember where I let it on February 13 (see N26 – this time, it’s for real, right?); this, despite the reset by L. or my reinstalling the App. When I replied – at 3:36 pm – to the aforementioned email, mentioning this issue, I realized that L. (and not F.) sent it.
At 3:43 pm, the App finally responded, inviting me to continue. I immediately notified L. by email. Alas! My joy was short live. Just when I got hope again, the App logged me out for no reason. I could not log in anymore, not even via the website. My password was now invalid!
“What happened?”
At 4:10 pm, I received an email from F. and I understood why:
Hello,
We inform you that your registration has been successfully reset. Therefore, you can resume this procedure on February 26.
Wishing you a good day,
Regards,
F.
Noooooooo!!!!!!
To be continued…