… continuing the story.
A quick and simple solution that would allow me to continue the sign-up procedure […] was to create an alias, but […] it was too late. M. (from the N26 chat) had already reset my account. I had to wait for 24 hours.
Forty-eight hours later – not 24 hours as originally thought (see The N26 nightmare – part 6) – I could finally re-start the registration process again. Well, a one-day delay is nothing compared to the three months that I had already struggled with this nightmare. Yep, three months that I was trying to open a bank account with N26… Quite far from the 8-min process, right!
It just takes a few minutes to open a bank account online with N26. Download the smartphone app or head to the N26 website. Confirm your personal details, email, and shipping address, then select the type of account you’d like to open.N26
One more time…
As soon as the 24 48-hour postponement ended, I headed to their website. Once again, I was going through the first step of this four-step process (see A “real” bank – N26). Once again, I clicked on Get started and provided all the info (email, phone number, address, nationality, etc.). Of course, I quadruple-checked everything, twice! Still, I feared that, once again, I would never see the fourth step…
At 2:24 pm, I received the email to confirm my email address. At 2:32 pm, I received another email informing me: [my] phone [had] been successfully synchronized with [my] N26 account
. Everything was looking good. I just had to verify my identity – One last step before finalizing the opening of your account
– the third step of the process indeed.
To complete your account opening, all you need to do now is verify your identity. It’s quick and easy: just follow the information that appears when you log into the N26 app.N26
Phone synchronization
There was also (in the aforementioned email) an explanation about the reason for this synchronization. In short, this is a security measure . . . intended to prevent anyone else from accessing your account or carrying out fraudulent transactions.
If you log in from an unsynchronized device to your N26 account or from an unknown web browser and when you make certain transactions, you will need to confirm these actions from your synchronized phone, via a notification.N26
Importantly, there was this additional note: your account can only be synced with one device: you must desynchronize your old phone before syncing the new one.
No wonder I had no clue what L. was talking about when instructing me to dissociate the device
(step 1) and re-pair the device
(step 5) back then (see The N26 nightmare – part 2); I did not receive this email the first time I went through the procedure.
At 2:47 pm, I sent an email to M. (the person who reset my account 48 hours earlier; see The N26 nightmare – part 5) explaining that this time I did not make any mistake in my email address and that everything went smoothly.
Open your N26 account in 8 minutes
At 6:13 pm, I received THE email from N26. It took a little bit more than 8 minutes – 240 minutes actually, not to mention the 3 months that preceded! However, the email was not the one I expected; the subject line was:
Your identity verification failed
Hello Alexandre,
We are happy to count you among our customers.
The documents you sent us when verifying your identity have been examined. We cannot validate the verification of your identity because we have found irregularities in the data entered.
Please contact our Customer Service for more information and so that we can help you.
To be continued…